The current state of the Students’ Society of McGill University (SSMU) is disconcerting, to say the least: Executives and employees have resorted to publishing op-eds against each other, and five of the six remaining executives have formally expressed a position of non-confidence in President Muna Tojiboeva, due to a lack of transparency and communication with both her colleagues and the students she represents. These public rifts diminish the effectiveness and legitimacy of the organization and the important services it provides, negatively impacting its constituents. Moreover, framing the current discord within SSMU solely in terms of “political differences,” as Tojiboeva has done, obscures legitimate student concerns regarding her performance as president. Until Tojiboeva acknowledges and commits to improving upon her past incompetencies, and the executive team as a whole overcomes their frustrations toward each other, SSMU’s ability to serve students will suffer.

Tojiboeva ran for president to increase transparency and repair student trust in SSMU after a scandal-filled year. As President, she has yet to fulfill these promises. Measures to encourage student engagement and participation in the Oct. 23 Fall General Assembly (GA) were lacking compared to previous years. In particular, Tojiboeva failed to directly communicate the motion submission deadline—two weeks prior to the assembly itself—in time for members to submit motions for consideration at the GA. Consequently, several motions were submitted from the floor, and by extension, required two-thirds majority to be added to the agenda, rather than a simple majority. This misstep at best shows carelessness, and a weak commitment to upholding democracy within SSMU.

Under Tojiboeva’s leadership, important information regarding the meetings and decisions of governing bodies has also become less accessible to students. The SSMU Board of Directors (BoD)—of which Tojiboeva is the Chair—meeting minutes now consist of summaries rather than verbatim accounts, and have not been regularly updated: Oct. 15 and 22 minutes were not uploaded online until Oct. 30, and the Oct. 1 meeting minutes are still missing as of Oct. 31. Moreover, the BoD resolution book has yet to be updated during Tojiboeva’s term, something that she should prioritize if she is serious about increasing transparency.

The Oct. 16 suspension of Vice-President (VP) Finance Arisha Khan from the BoD is another example of the opacity of SSMU practices under Tojiboeva’s leadership. While she was away representing SSMU at a conference, the Board voted to suspend Khan on charge of a confidentiality breach, compromising her ability to defend herself. The President, along with the two other SSMU executives present, had to leave the room for the closed discussion and ultimately abstained from voting. However, any decision regarding a senior actor within student government must be made transparently, and with adequate due process. As Chair of the BoD, Tojiboeva should have made every attempt to ensure Khan’s representation at the meeting, or otherwise proposed to table the discussion until Khan returned.

These are objective failures of Tojiboeva’s promises of transparency and her ability to fulfill her presidential duties. Yet, she has failed to adequately respond to such criticisms, discounting them in a letter to The Bull and Bear as the SSMU “establishment” disliking her because “they no longer have a reliable lackey to do their bidding in the SSMU Executive.