New Leadership at UPEI: Unpacking UPEISU 2024 Winter Election Results
The UPEI Student Union election results were announced on Wednesday, 13th March 2024. The candidates and their supporters gathered at the Fox and Crow around 9 pm for the announcement.
Katie Parker, Chair of Council at the UPEI Student Union, stepped onto the stage with the list of winners. The excitement and nervousness were palpable among the candidates as Katie began announcing the results, starting with council representatives and followed by Vice Presidents and the President’s position.
The executive position results were as follows:
Noah Mannholland was elected VP Academic, being the sole candidate.
Hadiqa Sulman won the position of VP Student Life with 440 votes, while her competitors Ditthi Chatterjee, Erika Marcelo, and Adwaith Jayaraj received 268, 152, and 38 votes respectively. Shreesh Agarwal, elected as VP External, defeated his competitor Shura Hanna by 184 votes, getting 494 votes total. The most anticipated result was the President’s position, which went to George Jiang, who received a whooping 549 votes. Divya Daboo came second at 390, while Ibrahim Younis came last at 248.
As the results were announced, the room filled with cries of joy and disappointment from the candidates. Some celebrated their victories, while others mourned their losses.
The Cadre interviewed the candidates to capture their reactions. Hadiqa admitted that she hadn’t been certain about her victory and had prepared herself mentally for a loss. She also shared her priorities for her term in office.
Shreesh expressed his joy at winning by almost 200 votes and promised to keep his social media active to keep students updated on his activities.
Noah was excited to work with the new team of executives and looked forward to seeing the engagement of the students.
Divya Daboo congratulated the executive team while acknowledging that the elections had been tough for all the candidates.
George was visibly thrilled as he was announced as the President, and many students gathered around him to congratulate him on his achievement. He shared his emotions and also promised to have a pathway from the new residence to Blaze Pizza before his tenure ends. George has also promised several other incentives such as lower prices at Fox and Crow, student discounts at grocery stores, and addressing parking issues.
The event concluded at Fox and Crow, and the results were later announced on the UPEI Student Union’s official social media pages.
It takes great courage and effort to nominate and campaign around campus for the betterment of the students while also maintaining a full-time course load being students. Regardless of, if a student won the elections or not, they would still remain exemplary student leaders and ambassadors around campus.
By Syed Imran,
Managing Editor