As campaigning for the CUSU and GU elections intensifies following the opening of online voting on Monday, the weekend has seen a slip-up for one presidential candidate and continuing tensions over a manifesto policy for another.

Candidate Flick Osborn was forced to apologise on Saturday for a mistake in her manifesto and leaflets. The former JCR president at St John’s had stated on her manifesto that during her presidency, she had persuaded the college to pay the Living Wage to “all staff”. It has since emerged that her statement was false. Only permanent staff at the college are currently paid a Living Wage, and not employees on casual contracts.

The error was spotted and brought to the attention of the CUSU Elections Committee by fellow presidential hopeful Greg Hill. The Homerton JCR president and chair of Cambridge Universities Labour Club, is the candidate most closely identified with the living wage campaign. Hill has made it one of the central points of his manifesto, after successfully lobbying Homerton during his JCR presidency to raise all staff pay rates to at least £7.45 per hour, the UK’s official living wage.

The CUSU Elections Committee, chaired by Returning Officer and outgoing Access Officer, Vicky Hudson, refused to rule on whether the claim was true or not. A new post on the Rulings section of the Elections Committee webpage which appeared on Friday states that: “CUSU Elections Committee does not see it as its role to rule on the veracity or otherwise of individual statements made by candidates in the election. That is the rule we hope is played by vigorous campaigning by all candidates and their campaigners, holding each other’s statements to account in the public arena.”

Osborn has since acknowledged the mistake on her campaign blog. In a post written on Saturday night, she states: “I want to apologise unreservedly for any miscommunication and misunderstanding I’ve caused here. I can assure you it is not my intention to make false claims!” She adds, “My fellow candidate Greg is passionate about the Living Wage Campaign, so I’d also like to offer my apologies to him and his committee who have worked so hard on it. I certainly don’t want them to think I am trying to claim success which isn’t my own.”

The third presidential candidate, George Bangham, has also been under pressure in the campaign’s final stages to clarify his stance on the position of CUSU Women’s Officer. Bangham’s manifesto promises that “I’ll give Cambridge’s women a stronger voice in the Women’s Campaign, with a depoliticised women’s officer role, who listens to all women, all of the time.”

Bangham’s stance attracted scepticism among audience members at Monday evening’s CUSU council hustings. Candidate for Women’s Officer Lauren Steele expressed disappointment that the Women’s Campaign is “stigmatised as aggressive and radical”, while Welfare Officer candidate Helen Hoogewerf-McComb, when asked whether she thought welfare was political, answered that “being too shy about politics is dangerous when minorities are at risk”.

Bangham’s policy has been raised at several of this week’s hustings, most vocally at King’s on Wednesday. Posts on the ‘decline’ page of the Facebook event ‘Vote George Bangham for CUSU President’ include one by third year geographer at King’s Sorcha Bacon which reads: “sorry, as a woman i [sic] can't fit politics into my small pretty and sometimes hysterical brain, but could you explain to me why you would depoliticise the women's officers role? I'll try to understand but my womb may prevent me from understanding…!”

Another by student James Smith expresses anger that Bangham would work to “hold CUSU Campaigns to account”, stating “If once elected president you attempt to interfere with these campaigns you will have absolutely no legitimacy or real power to do so. All you are doing with your campaign is causing the members of these campaigns to feel as though they are not welcome and respected in Cambridge, and promoting the idea that autonomous campaigns shouldn't be independent.”

Bangham has responded by saying that his position has been misconstrued. Rather than changing the current women’s campaign, he insists, his belief is that there should be an additional, non-political position created so that women who do not align with the women’s campaign’s views have a place to have their opinions represented. Writing under Bacon’s Facebook post, he says “The campaigning role of the woman’s officer sits uncomfortably with her pastoral role for many of the people she is elected to represent.” He goes on to add that “this is part of a broader issue” to suggest that CUSU generally “should be a less politicised organisation”.

Online voting for the CUSU and GU positions opened at midnight on 4 March, with paper voting in colleges taking place two days later. The results will be announced on Wednesday night.