By David Dyck
This year’s general elections see new slate and President McCann running for URO
The candidates for this year’s Simon Fraser Student Society were announced this week. Three current board members will be running in the upcoming general election, as well as several first-time nominees, and a new slate of seven hopefuls calling themselves Renew SFU.
The presidential race will be one of the most hotly contested of the six executive positions, with three nominees in the running. Lorenz Yeung, current member services officer, Kayode Fatoba, and Renew SFU candidate Ashleigh Kolla will all be vying for the top position. Arry Dhillon, current at-large representative, also threw his hat into the ring initially, but later withdrew.
The position of treasurer only has two candidates: Michael McDonell from Renew SFU and current external relations officer Kevin Zhang.
Current president Jeff McCann will be running again, this time for university relations officer against Aleks Besan from Renew SFU. “A large part of my portfolio as president is already university relations. I personally believe the best way to do things is to create relationships and especially with the administrators, because they have the power to make change in a lot of the things that I want to do to change student life, student experience, food options, those types of things,” McCann told The Peak, explaining his decision to run for a position other than president. He said that during his administration, he’s focused on a lot of projects that require assistance from the administration, and he would like the opportunity to focus more directly on those projects in the upcoming term. “As president, you have a very diverse portfolio. At this point, I’d like to be able to focus on the specific projects that I’ve invested in.”
The Renew SFU slate includes candidates for the positions of president, treasurer, university relations officer, external relations officer, and internal relations officer on the executive, as well as one member at-large and a forum representative for the sociology and anthropology student union.
In a Renew SFU platform released last Thursday, the group stated that their goals are to “recognize that our university gains its vitality through the diversity of student voices, and use this to shape our dialogue with the university,” actively seeking out student participation and creating trust in SFSS processes. It further stated that “it is important to elect everyone on the Renew SFU slate because we have a diversity of experience but will all work together to accomplish these common goals. Once elected, we will make sure these values of engagement, diversity, transparency, and fiscal responsibility are reflected in the way we run our society.”
The positions of member services officer and internal relations officer will both be votes of acclamation, with only one candidate running for each, Humza Khan and Renew SFU candidate Craig Pavelich, respectively.
There are few contested positions in faculty representative races, but there are five contestants for the two member at-large positions. The most candidates for a faculty representative is for science, where voters will have three choices.
The election will be held online from March 20 to 22.
