Victoria Silman | News Editor
Featured Image: The YFS elections have concluded, and UniteYU has taken a majority of the seats—again. | Fatema Ali
The YFS election results are in, and mirror those from last year—UniteYU has won a majority of seats in the student union, including all executive positions.
UniteYU’s Fatima Babikar won the position for president with 3,801 votes over Vision’s Noam Sibony, who garnered 1,832. VP Campus Life went to UniteYU’s Mutaz Elhawash, who brought in 3,351 over Vision’s Daniel Muntaner, widely known as ‘Fedora Guy,’ who received 2,281 votes. UniteYU’s Azinwi Saningong garnered 3,343 votes over Vision’s Celia Lewin, who only saw 2,268 votes.
Both UniteYU’s Jasmine Hawamdeh for VP Campaigns and UniteYU’s Aaron Suresh for Advocacy and VP Operations were acclaimed in their positions.
Of all the positions, including faculty and college director, only four were not appointed to UniteYU candidates. The only independent candidate, Abdeali Saherwala, won for director of environmental studies with 48 votes, over the Vision incumbent’s 28 votes. Vision candidates Robert Kotok, Daliah Adler, and Dasha Androusenkov won director positions for Schulich, Lassonde, and Glendon respectively.
Priyank D’Sa, campaign manager for Vision, says ballot counting took 13.5 hours from the time of the closure to polling stations.
D’Sa says: “Vision is still contesting by law violations—slander and sabotage,” from incidents which occurred during the campaign period.
The polling stations closed February 15, the originally scheduled day, despite the cancellation of one polling day due to inclement weather. According to the election Chief Returning Officer (CRO), Sahabthan Jesuthasan, voting hours were extended for the rest of the week to accommodate those who were unable to get to campus due to the cancellation. However, the length of the extension was not specified.
Amidst the cancellation, voter turnout decreased again from last year’s election. The 2018 election saw a turnout of just over 6,000 for executive positions. This year, no more than 5,810 votes were cast on executive positions, including spoiled votes, bringing the turnout for executive positions down to 11 per cent.
Fourth-year professional writing student, Rachel Hershkop, says she voted to create change within the student government. “I voted because it’s incredibly important for students to be involved in student government. Just like of our provincial and federal governments, student governments have a significant impact when it comes to undergraduate student life,” she says.
Furthermore, she points out students have been less involved than they should be in decision-making on campus, which has caused problems with democracy within the YFS.
“There are a lot of policies that have been passed and that continue to be accepted by the current student government that I highly disagree with, and the problem is that the students who don’t vote, those things are going to persist, and changes are unlikely to happen,” she adds.
At the time of publication, candidates for UniteYU, as well as the CRO, could not be reached for comment.
