It was a clean sweep for UNITY. Rini Ghosh, the two-term President of the Arts and Science Students’ Union (ASSU) beat out her competitors Justin Woong Kim and Shane O’Dowd-Rutherford for the top job at SAC.
Surrounded by her supporters, Ghosh waited anxiously for the results on Thursday night at the Bahen Center where election results for all candidates, including the Board of Directors were announced. The entire UNITY team erupted into cheers and began chanting the team slogan the moment Ghosh was declared president. Despite her impressive credentials, Ghosh was in shock.
“I feel great! I’m really really happy. It was a great campaign and we had a great time. We were so organized and we worked so hard.” When asked how she planned to celebrate her win, Ghosh, all smiles and giggles, said, “Sleep! No, we’re probably going to go out for drinks.”
Justin Woong Kim, the defeated presidential candidate, stood up and congratulated Ghosh in front of the crowd after learning of his loss in his second bid for the job. “Rini, I’m really happy for you. I really thought you guys ran a great and clean campaign.”
Kim is best remembered as the candidate who introduced the discount on cell phone plans as part of his presidential platform, which he lost to Ashley Morton last year. But this year’s loss was particularly disappointing for Kim. “This was something I really wanted to do and I couldn’t let go of the support…this was a promise between me and my dad. I don’t think I would run again next year,” revealed Kim.
The loss means that Kim will go back to school and finish his courses. He managed to remain in good spirit and said, “I gotta catch up with school…and I’ll probably go out and celebrate with the UNITY team tonight.”
Thursday night was not a good night for Building Bridges. Out of the six executive candidates, Dylan Rae was the only one who carried through. Rae, who is currently the VP Student Life, was re-elected, beating Danielle King and Jason Young. The other winners, all from the UNITY team, are Sam Rahimi as VP External, Moneeza Ahmed as VP UTM, Howard Tam, returning as VP University Affairs, Julia Munk, also returning as VP Equity and Lisa Aldridge as VP Operations.
The out-going VP Operations, Alex Artful-Dodger, was impressed with the crop of candidates who ran this year and remains optimistic for the new SAC government. “Both candidates [Ghosh and Kim] were really cordial to each other. There was no animosity at the end, which was different from last year. And I don’t think there were many people who ran for the executive this year that I think would have left SAC in bad hands,” commented Dodger.
Despite UNITY’s electoral success, the two levies, one of which was for SAC and the other a $0.69 levy for the Lesbians, Gays, Bisexuals and Transgender People of the University of Toronto (LGBTOUT), both failed.
For VP Equity Julia Munk, her win and the failed levy was a bittersweet outcome. “I think LBGTOUT totally deserved [the levy] and they worked really hard for it. There’s always next year and we’re hoping to bring up it up again. I’ll always support them and hopefully, one day it will come through,” said Munk.
The real success of the night was the in the way the candidates acknowledged each other for their hard work and clean campaigns. Jason Chung, who lost to Lisa Aldridge for VP Operations believed this was one of the fairest elections ever. “There was no underground, dirty or underhanded stuff going on,” said Chung adding, “I would love to see SAC with more diversity but I think Lisa will make a great VP [Operations]…I know she’ll work hard.”
Ashley Morton, the current president of SAC, kept a low profile on Thursday night and was disappointed with the low turn out. “[The turn out] this year was somewhere around 10 per cent. That’s a little bit down from last year,” said Morton. Morton’s days as SAC president are winding down but he said he still has some loose ends to tie up. “For the next five weeks, I still have to focus on next year’s health plan and on the transition to Rini…but nothing earth shattering.” He added, “I’m very pleased with this year…we’ve made some structural changes to SAC that really improved it and I feel very good about that. After this, I’m probably going to move to Newfoundland and live with my fiancé.”
