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Muhammad Ali crowned: R.S. United sweeps with record-high voter turnout |
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Monday, 01 May 2006 |
By Joshua Errett
Ryersonian Staff
Last Updated: Feb.16, 2006. 1:00 a.m.
It was a clean sweep for the R.S. United team on Wednesday night, with each of their four executive candidates winning with comfortable margins in the Ryerson Students’ Union elections.
In what was a record turnout, students elected Muhammad Ali Jabbar as President, Nora Loreto as vice-president of education, Chris Drew as vice-president of finance and Alam Ashraful as vice-president of student life. The results were announced close to 1 a.m. this morning at the Ram in the Rye pub.
Jabbar won the tightest contest, beating Elect Connect candidate Sarah Turnbull by a few hundred votes. Turnbull was the only candidate on the Elect Connect slate to win a polling station, taking the Rogers Building by a slim margin.
“We gave them a run for their money,” said Turnbull during a reading of the election results. “That’s what we wanted to do.”
Jabbar had support from several key groups on campus, including the Muslim Students’ Association. He also credits the community services department in the Library Building for his victory. Jabbar ended up winning by more than 600 votes. The rest of his slate had a much more comfortable majority, with Loreto and Drew both garnering more than 1,000 votes each.
Loreto, who was re-elected in a landslide victory, was the most visible candidate in the campaign.
“This is my work, this is my life,” said Loreto just before final results were announced. “This shows people respected my work.”
Elect Connect candidate Rohan Singh, Loreto’s opponent, viewed the results differently.
“Students chose the status quo,” he said directly after it was clear he had lost.
Chris Drew, who also won by a generous margin, complimented the student body on what he believed to be a good choice.
“Ryerson students are very smart,” he said.
The two-week campaign leading up to today’s results was not without controversy.
The subject of disqualification played a larger-than-usual role this year, as Turnbull faced the prospect of being removed from the ballot as late as Tuesday night.
The third slate, which included a joke candidate that did not campaign, did not play a factor in the results.
The current RSU executives will leave office in April.
Article taken from: http://stw.ryerson.ca/%7Esonian/feb15/news/ali.html
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