On March 15, the University of Toronto Mississauga Students’ Union (UTMSU) released the unofficial election results of its 2024–2025 elections. The EmpowerUTM slate swept the election, beating out ForUTM for all president and vice-president (VP) positions.
For the 2024–2025 academic year, students elected Joelle Salsa as UTMSU president, Philip Anyang as VP equity, Ronny Chen as VP internal, Daniel Ripoll as VP external, and Sidra Ahsan as VP university affairs.
Approximately 16.3 per cent of eligible voters turned out for the election, which was held from March 12–14. This is slightly higher than last year, when the voter turnout was around 14 per cent.
Candidates have 48 hours after the announcement to request a ballot recount. The Chief Returning Officer — the official who administers the election — will present their report at the upcoming Board of Directors (BOD) meeting on March 22.
Who won?
Salsa led the UTMSU president race with 1,176 votes. The next runner-up was Ehab James of the ForUTM slate, who received 1,074 votes.
Chen received 1,285 votes for election as vice president internal, while runner-up Albert Pan received 1,070 votes.
Ripoll won for vice-president external with 1,289 votes. Simran Kaur Rattanpal, the runner-up, received 1,039 votes.
Ahsan was elected into the vice-president university affairs position with 1,217 votes. The runner-up Majo Romero received 954 votes.
For vice-president equity, the winner was Anyang with 1,287 votes. Runner-up Layla Zarroug received 1,066 votes.
Board of directors
22 students ran for the 11 available full-time student BOD positions.
In Division III of the BOD, which comprises part-time student directors at large, two seats remain vacant. Similarly, in Division IV — which comprises directors representing the professional faculties — the seat from the Mississauga Academy of Medicine remains unfilled.
The union expects to release results for the BOD election on Friday.
Elections controversy
On March 11, Elliot Fabian-Fine — a third-year student who formerly served as a campaign co-chair of ForUTM, the slate running against EmpowerUTM in the election — posted an Instagram statement explaining that he had resigned from his role on the slate.
Fabian-Fine wrote that he decided to step down so he could independently criticize the UTMSU elections process, which he alleged exerted too much control over slates’ campaigning by penalizing a member of ForUTM for engaging with a student publically on social media. According to 1.f.i of the UTMSU Elections Code, the CRO must approve any campaigning materials before slates publish them.
In an email to The Varsity, Greg Owens — the CRO for the election — declined to comment and wrote that any more information they have will be available in their CRO report. They will present their report to the UTMSU BOD on March 28 during the next UTMSU BOD meeting.
