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Day: 15 March 2013

Grace wins the race

The new Executive Team 2013/14 has been elected amid controversy as five candidates were disqualified.

Grace Skelton is the new General Secretary, beating her closest competitor by 1365 votes. While Liam Mayet, Clifford Fleming, Charlotte Cook, Omar Aljuhani, Rosie Dammers, Ellie Bradbury and Tabz O’Brien-Butcher were elected to the positions of Activities & Development, Campaigns & Citizenship, Community, Diversity, Education, Wellbeing and Women’s Officer, respectively.

The announcement of the winners was heavily delayed on election night, as five candidates were disqualified for “breach of the rule that requires candidates & teams respect the right to vote confidentially and freely” by the Returning Officer Jim Dickinson.
Khaldoon Khan (Community), Choudhry Haziq (Gen Sec), Shahneela Shehereen (Activities & Development), Kazi Tawseef (Wellbeing) and Ali Khalid (Diversity), were all disqualified. For more on this story see here.

Grace stated that her first priority in office would be to ensure that free wifi in halls is implemented in time for the new intake of students in September.

NUS Vice President (Education) Toni Pearce tweeted her support, “#ManchesterVotes POW! So delighted for Grace Skelton elected as Gen Sec! You are a complete hero, so happy for you (and you Manchester!)”
Skelton heads a team with a female majority, five out of the eight positions being won by female candidates.

Tabz O’Brien-Butcher, re-elected for a second term as Women’s Officer tweeted “Sooo excited about next years exec team @ManchesterSU – Some Young Greens, some Labour, & lots of feminists! Over the moon!”

Asked if she’d do anything differently, Tabz said “I’ve built foundations, so I’m just going to do it better. I’ve already got the contacts there, I’ve already got the experience.”

The most contested position in the election was Education Officer, with Rosie Dammers coming out on top in a close call. Last year saw Luke Newton elected with a margin of just three votes who tweeted “Amazing officer. All the candidates were good. Brilliant election results!”

Khalil Secker, current Campaigns & Citizenship Officer said, “I’m really pleased about all the people that got elected, but especially for two of the founding members of the Save Our NHS campaign, Liam and Charlotte.”

Liam Mayet, the successful Activities & Development Officer said that he wants to get started straight away. “My ideas about Freshers’ Fair, I absolutely want to completely change it, have it much longer. Bring it back to how it was, and much better organised. It will be a better way to get more people involved in societies.”

“I knew it would be a really close race, I honestly didn’t think I was going to win.” said Charlotte Cook, newly elected Community Officer. In an interview following the announcement she said that she would like to work on kosher and alcohol free zones in halls.

“With the Hillel halls shutting down it’s really important to Jewish students that they have that accommodation.” Hilel House is a private accommodation catering to Jewish students that sadly made the recent decision to close its doors next year.

Emotions overcame Ellie Bradbury speaking to The Mancunion and Fuse FM after it was announced that she is the new Wellbeing Officer. “I’m so happy as it’s a job I really wanted to do, and I think I can do well at it.”

Having chosen ‘OMG’ by Usher as a catchy campaign song, “Oh-mar-gosh!” was all that new Diversity Officer Omar Aljahuni could say upon taking to the stage. He later said that the celebrations would have to be postponed until he had completed an assignment due the following morning.

Clifford ‘the big red dog’ Fleming won the race for Campaigns & Citizenship with 1177 votes, a margin of nearly 400 votes ahead of Taz(manian) Ranjha, two of the more memorable campaign efforts this year.

Speaking to candidates ahead of the results, the majority commented on their relief that it was finally over and of the fun they’d had.
Gen Sec candidate James Johnson told The Mancunion that his campaign was a joke to begin with, but as the weeks progressed he took it more seriously.

Similarly, Samuel Blackledge only decided to run for Education Officer after seeing the last minute social media blast by the Student Voice team announcing that two positions were uncontested. He soon embraced his gimmick fuelled campaign, “Bananas for Blackledge” by walking around campus in a full banana suit.

Broadcasting live from Club Academy in the Students’ Union, Fuse FM hosted the event taking song requests on Twitter, with people competing for the best pun. ““I will survive! Perfect election song!” tweeted one student.

Election scandal as five candidates disqualified

Elections were marred by controversy and infighting last Thursday as five candidates were disqualified for directly cheating or failing to prevent their campaigners cheating.

The revelation that Choudhury Haziq, Khaldoon Khan, Shahneela Shehreen, Kazi Tawseef, and Ali Khalid would be kicked out was made moments before the winners were announced at 11:10pm, though rumours began circulating soon after the polls closed at 6pm.

All cases centred on students being pressured to vote by candidates and their campaigners. A voter for Community Officer candidate Khaldoon Khan and General Secretary hopeful Choudhury Haziq asked to “take back” their vote, claiming they were an international student and had made clear they did not know what the elections were about.
The report on the Students’ Union website said Khaldoon “sat with her, looking at the screen and pointed to the relevant sections of voting saying ‘press there’ at each point.”

Choudhury Haziq then did “exactly the same thing to her” later that day.

A further complaint regarding Activities and Development and Wellbeing candidates Shahneela Shehereen and Kazi Tawseef came from an election official who claimed a supporter had “forcibly intervened” to pressure people to vote for Shahneela.

They alleged that despite several warnings, a student was hassled at a polling station by a campaigner.

A student reported Ali Khalid for allegedly “telling him how to vote, and saying just before he got to the voting screen ‘I’m going to turn around because technically this is meant to be confidential’, directing him to put his number 1 next to the name with his back to the screen, for both candidates.

None of these formal complaints were made by students connected to any rival opponents.

The scandal follows an open letter, signed by 10 disillusioned candidates, complaining about the allowed usage of iPads. In the case of Ali Khalid, his supporters reportedly used laptops and iPads unfairly. None of the disqualified students signed the letter, although comments on The Mancunion post complained not everyone was approached.

Further complaints were made on the comments page alleging an influence from “current/previous exec” in the disqualifications, though The Mancunion confirmed these multiple comments signed with different names were made from the same I.P. address.

All five of the candidates were backed the Pakistan Society (PakSoc). Following the results, they released a statement on Facebook.

“It was disappointing to see some of the candidates being disqualified.

“Therefore we appeal for a detailed investigation in the reasoning of the Students’ Union’s decision to make sure there was no discrimination against candidates whilst the decision was made.”

LGBT rep Joe White, who lost out in the Activities Officer race last year, praised the decision by ManchesterSU on his Twitter account. “Damn right decision. You cannot break rules end of. Shame a similar strong decision wasn’t made last year.”

But some of the student body were not so captivated by the drama. Manchester student and Liberty League member Eileen Spalding tweeted: “People seeking union exec positions pressuring voters & getting disqualified? I’m somehow not shocked or surprised.”

The Manchester Students’ Union website stated: “The rules make clear that ‘all candidates must respect that every student has the right to vote confidentially and freely’ and that “any complaints raised by students about being unfairly pressured to vote for any particular candidate will be taken extremely seriously.”

They confirmed all preferences were passed over during the count.
Khalil Secker, Campaigns and Citizenship Officer, told The Mancunion: “I’m just grateful to the union officials that ran the elections for being so on the ball and managing to root out foul play so efficiently.

“It’s a massive relief to know that the future of the union is in safe hands with such a great incoming exec.”

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