2024-25 UMSU general election results

Divya Sharma to lead union as president

Results for the 2024-25 UMSU general election are in. Divya Sharma, Prahbnoor Singh, Rachhvir Dhaliwal, Bolu Akindele and Carolyn Wang have been elected to make up the executive team for the union next year.

The total turnout for this election was comprised of 16.8 per cent of the 23,675 eligible voters, a drop from last year’s 22.8 per cent of eligible voters, as reported on UMSU’s voting website, simplyvoting.ca.

Sharma won against Joy Okafor in the race for presidency by a margin of 11.4 percentage points, with Sharma gaining 1873 votes, or 55.7 per cent of the vote share, and Okafor at 44.3 per cent, or 1489 votes. 620 voters abstained.

Both Singh and Dhaliwal ran unopposed for their titles of vice president external affairs and vice president university affairs respectively, with voters affirming their election with 80.9 and 78.9 per cent of voters voting “yes.” Singh had 2286 votes in his favour and 1157 abstentions. Dhaliwal earned 2199 votes, with 1194 abstaining.

In the race for vice president student life, Akindele earned 53.9 per cent of the vote share, or 1597 votes, compared to Michael Prokipchuk’s 1367 votes, or 46.1 per cent, earning Akindele the position. There were 1018 abstentions in this race.

The closest race of the election saw a 5.2 percentage point difference in vote share between Wang and Adil Hayat, with Wang securing 52.5 per cent of the vote, or 1604 votes, and Hayat at 47.5 per cent, or 1449 votes. 929 voters abstained in this race.

Damilola Ojo won 63 per cent of the votes, beating opponent Clifford Emelumba’s 37 per cent in the race for Black students’ representative.

On the ballot unopposed following the disqualification of Dhruvi Shah, Krupa Mashru won the position of international students’ representative with 79.4 per cent “yes” votes.

86.2 per cent of the votes for racialized students’ representative were in favour of Christabel Attoni-Oteari, who ran unopposed.

“Yes” votes for Michaela de Hoop reached 87.2 per cent, securing her the position of Indigenous students’ representative. De Hoop ran unopposed.

Sole candidate for accessibility community representative Ekamjit Singh won 78.5 per cent “yes” votes.

Heaven Kaur, running unopposed for women’s representative, gained 88.2 per cent votes in her favour.