By Vanessa Broadbent (The Cascade) – Email
With three weeks until the voting period opens for the Student Union Society’s (SUS) annual elections, candidates have been announced.
The executive candidates are: current vice president external Sukhi Brar and Manmeet Sekhon for president, Thanh Ma and Pankaj Kumar Sharma for vice president external, and Ashmeet Kaur Saran and Cameron Findlay Stephen for vice president internal.
The candidates for student representatives are: Alexis Lee Graham and Rooiana Alizada, to represent students from the Faculty of Health Sciences, Sahil Chawla and Arashpreet Tamber for the Faculty of Sciences, Tanya Vanpraseuth for the Faculty of Professional Studies, and Dong Wook (Sunny) Kim for the College of Arts.
The only change in this election is that the elected individuals will be taking office on May 1, rather than April 1. This allows for a transition period for the new members that does not overlap with final exam period and the end of semester.
“It [was] always problematic having new people expected to work almost full-time hours in that April period,” outgoing president Thomas Davies says. “We hope [the new date] will be a lot more efficient and effective for both the outgoing people, being able to finish off the year so it ties in with the semester end, and the new people getting training.”
This election also means that SUS will again be working with a vice-president internal again. Previous VP internal Ricardo Coppola announced his resignation at the SUS’s November meeting and the society has been operating with the position vacant ever since.
In a change from recent elections, all executive positions have more than one candidate running for them.
“[That] is fantastic to see,” Davies says.
Voting for all positions will take place from March 7 to 10 through myUFV. The Cascade will publish candidate interviews in its March 2 issue.
