2018–19 Students’ Union election results announced at raucous Den party
By Jason Herring, March 8 2018 —
Two weeks of campaigning for the 2018 Students’ Union election culminated in The Den on March 8 as SU chief returning officers Hamnah Altaf and Dave Antoniak announced the results to a crowd of hundreds of students.
Puncham Judge won the race for vice-president external, securing 52 per cent of the vote to best Emma Hopper.
Judge said she was excited to continue the work she has already been doing.
“I am so glad that I have the opportunity to serve the students once again,” Judge said. “I’ll do the best to fulfil everything that I’ve promised that I would do.”
In a three-candidate race for vice-president operations and finance, Kevin Dang came out on top with 61 per cent of the vote. Briana Stallcup earned 23 per cent while Rio Valencerina earned 15 per cent.
“I’m just so excited right now to get started working,” Dang said. “It was a hell of a fight out there and I’m so happy right now.”
Next year’s vice-president academic is Jessica Revington, whose 52 per cent of the vote earned her a victory over Omer Mansoor.
Revington said she owes her victory to her campaign team.
“I had a great team I got to work with and it looks like I’ll have a really great team coming out this year,” Revington said. “I’m absolutely thrilled.”
Among the three candidates vying for the vice-president student life position, Nabila Farid won with 38 per cent — a difference of six votes. Helen Wang and Assad Ali Bik followed with 38 and 24 per cent of the vote, respectively.
Farid said she was excited to follow in current VP student life Hilary Jahelka’s footsteps.
“[Jahelka] has done amazing things and I’d love to build on them on our campus,” Farid said. “Student life is so important. I am really excited to be stepping into this role.”
Frank Finley will be next year’s SU student-at-large on the University of Calgary Board of Governors. He secured 37 per cent of the vote, topping Chinmoy Ayachit and Mike Moman with 36 and 27 per cent of the vote, respectively.
Finley also credited his campaign team for the victory.
“I had a massive team of people behind me and even though there is one name on the ballot, this was a group effort by far and that is extraordinarily important to remember,” Finley said.
Alisha Gordon and Anayat Sidhu will both return to sit on the U of C senate as students-at-large. Gordon got 38 per cent of the vote, while Sidhu also got 38 per cent of the votes.
6,552 undergraduate U of C students voted in this year’s election, for a voter turnout of 24.8 per cent, down less than one percentage point from last year’s election.
SU president-elect Sagar Grewal was pleased with the voter turnout, which stayed stagnant from last year despite an increase in acclamations.
“I think it gives credit to the candidates who ran and were able to engage students and get them out to vote,” Grewal said. ”It speaks to the quality of the candidates we had this year.”
Additionally, Altaf and Antoniak announced the incoming faculty representatives.
In an eight-candidate field, Quinn Stevenson, Dana Nasser, Marley Gillies and Raquel Jackson won out as next year’s arts representatives.
Ananya Ayachit and Davis Lougheed emerged as next year’s Haskayne School of Business representatives among a seven-candidate field.
Mairead Whelan and Jarin Thundathil were elected as Cumming School of Medicine representatives and Mathieu Chin will represent the Faculty of Kinesiology.
In addition to Grewal’s acclamation as the next SU president, six faculty representative positions were acclaimed in this year’s election.
Candace Cho was acclaimed as the nursing representative while Hyatt Mokhtar, Fathima Sadiya Nazir and Michael Nguyen were acclaimed as science representatives. Bassam Saifeddine, Marissa Bennett and Julie Choi will return in the Faculties of Law, Social Work and Veterinary Medicine representative positions, respectively.
Ahsen Imran will serve as one of the SU’s two Schulich School of Engineering representatives, while the other position was left vacant. The representative for the Werklund School of Education was also not contested by any students. A by-election will be announced to determine who will represent those faculties.