The campaign period for UTMSU’s by-elections began quietly last Monday for five vacant seats on the board of directors in three of five electoral divisions.
The nomination phase ended on September 19 and drew a total of 14 first-year students to register their candidacy for two positions vacant in the board’s Division 1. Running are Mohamed Dine, Maheen Farrukh, Abbas Godhrawala, Kavya Kumar, Vaibhav Narang, Farah Noori, Abdulla Omari, Antoinetta Jade Orprecio, Raj S. Pandya, Vibhuti Razdan, Mona Jawid Sheik, Alisa Angela Taube, Qiongwen (Rebecca) Xu, and Samiha Zaman.
Division 5, intended for students of the Mississauga Academy of Medicine, holds one vacancy, and only one candidate running for the position: Simon Feng.
For the two positions available in the board’s Division 4 tier designated for part-time students, only one candidate, Salem Aboghodieh, is running.
Interim elections for vacant positions are only required for Divisions 1–4, according to UTMSU’s constitution and bylaws.
Last Thursday, the candidate names and statements for seven of the 16 candidates were posted on the UTMSU website.
As of press time, statements for the nine remaining candidates had still not been published since the campaign period began last Monday.
The board of directors is the highest decision-making entity of the union, according to the constitution. Among other things, the board is responsible for determining UTMSU’s budget.
Students will be able to cast their ballots from September 30 until October 2. The election results will be announced on October 6.
