Sai Gujulla of NUI Galway has been chosen by DCU students to be the next President of the Union of Students in Ireland (USI).
The vote was opened last night following the hustings of candidates for various roles on the USI’s Coiste Gnó, and closed this afternoon.
59 votes were cast in this “mandate result” for President, with 36 votes going to Gujulla after a third count.
In the hustings last night, which took place in the Business Building on DCU’s Glasnevin Campus, Gujulla said he wanted to make the USI “as accessible as possible”, and that he wanted to bring back grassroots activism – “the reason why USI was founded”.
The vote conducted in the past day is being used as a way to decide who the DCUSU should vote for when their delegation goes to the USI Congress in Co. Sligo next month.
“The candidate who gets the highest amount of votes will get all of the votes from the DCU delegation at Congress in April,” SU President Thomas O’Dowd said at the end of the hustings last night.
Other roles were also contested, with Bryan O’Mahony of SETU Waterford winning 44 of 50 votes cast for the VP for Academic Affairs race. O’Mahony is running unopposed in that race.
Current DCUSU VP for Wellbeing Colette Murphy earned 63 of 70 votes cast for the VP for Welfare race, which she is running unopposed in.
Christine O’Mahony, the current VP for Diversity and Inclusion, earned 49 of 71 votes cast, easily beating her three opponents in the race for VP for Campaigns, each scoring eleven, five and four votes, with the Re-Open Nominations option gaining just two votes.
James Curry, who is the Vice President of the TU Dublin Students’ Union, ran unopposed for the race of VP for Equality and Citizenship, and bagged 41 of 47 votes.
Current DCUSU VP for Community and Citizenship Nathan Murphy is running unopposed in the race for VP for the Dublin Region, and earned 53 of 63 votes in the ballot.
Alicia Lewandowska is running for the position of Leas-Uachtarán don Gaeilge (VP for the Irish Language), and earned 30 of a possible 45 votes.
Finally, Muhammad Saeed extended his lead in the second count against his fellow DCU opponent Muhammad Afzal to get the DCUSU votes for VP for Postgraduate Affairs. In the first count, the two were only two votes apart, however when second preferences were dispersed, Saeed extended his lead.
Matthew Joyce