The CSU byelection race is on

While the tell-tale signs of election time have yet to pop up on campus, the Concordia Student Union has just entered its final week of the byelections period.

Students will be able to choose between four candidates vying for three seats reserved for business students on the CSU council when polling stations open on Nov. 29, 30, and Dec.1, while only one candidate has applied for the two vacant independent seats.

Newly appointed chief electoral officer Ismail Holoubi was given the position on Nov. 2 following the controversial dismissal of former CEO Bram Goldstein. Holoubi has had less than a month to pick up where Goldstein left off.

“Time was the only challenge,” wrote Holoubi in an email. “I managed to get everything back on schedule.”

Museb Abu-Thuraia, Saradjen Bartley, Yassine Chaabi, and Eduardo Alves Dos Anjos are competing for three open council seats for the John Molson School of Business.

“John Molson is not very represented at the CSU,” said Chaabi, noting that JMSB councillors rarely showed up to council meetings. “That’s why I decided to get involved in this — to encourage JMSB students to get more involved with the CSU.”

Alves Dos Anjos agrees with Chaabi that students at the business school often feel detached from the rest of the university, writing in an email that as a CSU council member he “really wants to give JMSB students a stronger voice within the student administration at Concordia.”

“In my past years as a JMSB student, I noticed too many JMSB students did not feel that what was going on outside of their classrooms at Concordia to be relevant to them,” wrote Alves Dos Anjos.

While two seats are available for independent students, Omar Abdullahi is the only one in the running.

“I have worked with the CSU on several campaigns including ‘Project Haiti,’” Abdullahi wrote when asked he thinks people should vote for him. “I have been active on campus for the last 3 years, I have worked in the CSU Advocacy defending the rights of students.”

Also on the ballot are two referendum questions from fee levy groups asking for an increase in funding. Campus radio station CJLO and CUTV are both requesting to increase their individual fee levies to 34 cents per credit.

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