The Rideau River Residence Association (RRRA) will be holding re-elections for executive positions later this month, on April 18 and 19.
The decision came after Carleton ombudsperson Jim Kennelly was asked by council in March to review the result of the February election. The Fresh RRRA slate came in first place despite being disqualified the day before voting started after accumulating three electoral violations.
The Next Step, led by incumbent president Hyder Naqvi, came in second but was named the winner because of the disqualification.
At the last meeting council voted to accept the recommendations of Kennelly as a third party.
“My solution is the students should decide on who represents them next year,” Kennelly said. He added that holding new elections is the fairest option.
Kennelly went through the electoral violations issued against Fresh RRRA, including the allegation of bribery, and said the chief electoral officer was correct in issuing them.
“Basically, a student election needs some rules, I don’t know why it’s so tough. These rules aren’t so tricky,” Kennelly said.
He said formal campaigning, including putting up posters and distributing campaign materials, would not be allowed for the re-election but he could not control what happens online. Instead, Kennelly’s office will be putting up posters to inform residence students of the new election.
“Your most important role as a candidate is to get the word out,” he said.
All the slates from the last election will be back on the ballot for the new election.
Naqvi said he was surprised with the decision to hold new elections considering how late the new elections will fall in the year.
“It’s just so late in the year,” he said. “[Kennelly] said he was trying to look for a solution, that he’s considering all options, and I guess this was his only choice.”
He also said there could be issues with people not knowing exactly what happened with Fresh RRRA’s disqualification in the first election.
“While the ombudsman assumes that all students are aware of the disqualifications, there are still a lot of students that don’t know exactly what happened,” Naqvi said.
Despite this, Naqvi said he felt “fairly confident” about the re-election.
Jessica May, Fresh RRRA’s campaign manager, said she was hoping a definitive decision would come from Kennelly’s report on the election, but said a new election is a fair option.
“I do think that this is sort of a fair way to come to a conclusion of what is the best decision for RRRA and what executive team will hold the positions next year,” she said.
Since the February election, the details of the alleged bribery that took place during the campaign were made public. In a voice recording, Connor Thibodeau, Fresh RRRA vice-president (administration) candidate, can be heard offering The A Team presidential candidate Ghassan Jabasini a salaried job with RRRA in exchange for his slate dropping out of the election.
May said the interpretation of this event depends on the student looking at it, but said she didn’t think it would have a big impact on the result of the re-election.
“With any election there’s definitely people who are more invested in what’s actually happening, then there’s people who are just voting because they like the person or there’s one good policy point where they’re keen on seeing implemented.”
Residence students will be able to vote through their Carleton emails on April 18 and 19, even if their exams are finished.
