By Sophie Sutcliffe, March 7 2019 —

(With files from Jason Herring and Kristy Koehler)



The winners of the 2019 Students’ Union General Election were announced March 7 in The Den by chief returning officers Hamnah Altaf and Leah Mordo to a crowd of around 150 students. The results conclude a week and a half of campaigning.



Jessica Revington will be the next SU President, beating out Harrison Montgomery, Renzo Pereyra and Quinn Stevenson. Revington won with 47 per cent of the vote, with Stevenson coming in second.



“I’m so grateful for everyone who got involved… regardless of whether or not they may have voted for me, I’m so happy they got involved and were engaged,” said Revington, also thanking her team of volunteers. “I’m so excited to have the team that we just elected in office. I think we’re going to accomplish amazing things together.”



Sadiya Nazir won the race for vice-president external, securing 76 per cent of the vote over Austin Caron. Anayat Sidhu, the incumbent, was disqualified after failing to pay a fine imposed by elections officials for a minor sanction within the proper time period.



Nazir wants to get to work right away, starting with getting students out to the polls for the upcoming provincial and federal elections.



“Because the provincial election is right around the corner I’m excited to get started right away,” she said.



In a three-candidate race for vice-president operations and finance, Omer Mansoor won with 52 per cent of the vote. Briana Stallcup earned 25 per cent while Jarin Thundathil earned 22 per cent.



“I was so, so nervous for the results but I’m so glad the students elected me and I’m so excited to start working,” said Mansoor.



As far as what he’s working on first, he says there’s a lot he wants to do.



“We’re going to start with the budget and then move more into policy and then get my working groups started,” he said. “I’m just so excited to start.”



Kevin Dang, the current vice-president operations and finance, was acclaimed as vice-president academic. Alisha Gordon, a current senate representative, was acclaimed as vice-president student life.



Ananya Ayachit will be next year’s SU student-at-large on the University of Calgary Board of Governors. She secured 55 per cent of the vote, topping incumbent Frank Finley.



“The people who believed in me, the volunteers, I just want to recognize them for their hard work over these two weeks, I couldn’t have done it without them,” said Ayachit. “I’m so excited for all the things to come.”



Raquel Jackson and Jonah Secreti will sit on the U of C senate as students-at-large, with 41 per cent and 30 per cent of the vote respectively.



“I’m just looking forward to being able to work with my fellow representatives within the Students’ Union. It’s going to be an amazing time and experience and I’m glad to be democratically elected to this position,” said Secreti. “I feel just insanely good right now. These 12 hour days with less than six hours of sleep were totally worth it.”



The referendum question regarding an increase in the Volunteer Services fee of $0.75 for full time students and $0.50 for part time students beginning in Fall 2019 passed, with 62 per cent of the vote.



About 21.1 per cent undergraduate U of C students voted in this year’s election — down nearly four percentage points from 24.8 per cent in last year’s election.



Altaf and Mordo also announced the incoming faculty representatives.



In a six-candidate field, Tomiwa Oje, Marley Gillies, Rayane Issa and Justin Gotta won out as next year’s Faculty of Arts representatives.



“I found it very stressful, this was my first campaign. It really took me some time to get out of my shell and talk to people but I’m really happy with how it went,” Oje said. “I’m just excited to actually make an impact for the arts faculty. I’m excited to have students be proud of their faculty again.”



Siavash Zarezadeh and Amy Beevor-Potts won out over three other candidates and were elected as Cumming School of Medicine representatives, while Keely Lindsay and Barney Miao emerged as the representatives for the Schulich School of Engineering.



Michael Nguyen, Angie Hu and Manpreet Sahota emerged as the representatives for the Faculty of Science in a five candidate race.



Several faculty representatives were acclaimed, meaning their names did not appear on the election ballot as they ran unopposed. Maggie Shortt will be representing the Haskayne School of Business and Mathieu Chin will be representing the Faculty of Kinesiology. Dalal Souraya will be representing the Faculty of Law, Candace Cho will be representing the Faculty of Nursing and Georgia East will be representing the Faculty of Education.



One position for the representative for the Haskayne School of Business, as well as the social work and veterinary medicine representative positions, were left vacant.

