Most students at university are busy with their classes and don't pay too much attention to whatever it is their student union is doing. So it is often the "activists" (who may or may not be taking a full course load) who get to run things. 

In the olden days when I was there, I remember one year one of the burning issues for the student union was which rival liberation army to support in the Angolan Civil War (There were three armies, proxies for the U.S., Russia and China). 

I thought the whole thing was quite absurd as, given that the student population had been pretty much against the Vietnam War, why was the Student Union now trying to pick sides in a far away civil war? 

But I was far too busy "going to school" to bother writing letters to the student newspaper that might or might not have been published and likely would have had about zero impact on the ongoing Angolan civil war debate that was raging.

Fortunately University Student Politicians don't run the world.