Dan’s the man: Stevens wins presidency

Daniel Stevens has been elected as the next president of Warwick’s Students’ Union. He defeated five other candidates in this year’s union elections, which saw close races in many of the sabbatical positions. He gained 1,927 votes after seven rounds of elimination, with Jack Collier trailing behind in second place with 1,187 votes.

Students’ Union elections use the single transferable vote system. Stevens had a total of 1,398 votes in first preference votes, Collier had 864, and Asen Geshakov followed closely with 757 votes.

Stevens, who is in his fourth year studying PPE, took a year out which he spent in his native Brazil. He told the _Boar_, “I feel actually absolutely baffled, it’s the best feeling I’ve ever had –- I’m surprised I haven’t cried. This is great!”

When asked about his predecessor, Stevens was slightly evasive. He criticised the rebuild, arguing that it was “too expensive for what we got.”

Nonetheless, he admitted that the timing for Bradley’s term in office was unfortunate from this point of view: “I can’t judge Andrew because he came in and he had to solve the problems of the rebuild and I think he’s done a good job. I think he hasn’t been strong enough though. I’ll definitely take a stronger stance.

When asked about what will be the biggest challenge, he admitted that costs would be the salient problem of his career. He nonetheless seemed prepared to confront the issue.

Stevens’s plans involve a new media centre to be built in the former Grad Club, a lounge area in the Atrium, as well as the reduction in costs for accommodation and transport.

Following his election to the post of education officer Sean Ruston, told the _Boar_: “I always thought I was in for a chance, but I never thought anyone was the favourite, as it was such a tight race. I’m just lucky that I won in the end!”

Ruston obtained the majority of votes from the first round with 1,435 votes. His closest opponent was Jameisha Majevadia who followed him with 682 votes.

Leo Boe was in disbelief that he had been elected Welfare Officer. He said he hadn’t been at all confident he would win, “I am happy that I’m here and I’m happy that I won. I hope I manage to deliver on my manifesto commitments. I want to congratulate the people who were running against me. They all had fantastic ideas, some of which I’ll obviously take up when I am Welfare Officer.”

{{ number 22.5% of students voted }}

Boe won after five elimination rounds with a total of 1,034 votes, followed by Owain Griffiths with 856 votes. Boe obtained a total of 749 first preference votes.

In the run for Democracy and Communications Officer, Chris Luck won by an absolute majority after just one elimination round, obtaining 1,642 votes relative to his main challenger, Nicola Woolfe, who obtained 723 votes.

Regarding media, Luck said: “I really want to listen to you guys a lot more. The _Boar_ and [RaW](/news/raw/) need to get out there more, I want to hear RaW in the Union building much more often. I want to give Warwick TV a presence. Obviously we need to tackle this media centre problem.”

Stuart Stanley, the newly elected Finance Officer, reinforced one of his manifesto commitments, namely to do his best to give students on campus a takeout. “I’m not going to guarantee that we’ll have one, but it’s definitely something that students want. So I think it’s definitely something we should look into and see if it’s financially viable.”

Stanley won after two rounds with a total of 1,293 votes. His closest opponent was Chris Rye, who gained 899 votes in the final round.

George Whitworth narrowly won his race for Sports Officer. At the end of the voting, Thomas Morton had 764 first preference votes over the eventual winner, who only got 758 votes. Four rounds later, however, Whitworth won by just ten votes with a total of 999, making this one of the most fiercely fought positions.

After the race for sports, there was also close competition for societies, with Andy White and Tom Stickland gaining a similar number of first preference votes in the first round. Following four elimination rounds however, White beat Stickland with a total of 927 to 886 votes.

Andy White expressed his desire to use his extra-curricular experiences as a student for his future role as Societies Officer. He reinforced his manifesto commitment of finding a new home for [RaW](/news/raw/) and of seeing “[Warwick TV](/news/warwick-tv/) be more easily available to the student audience”.

With a male dominated team of sabbatical officers and lack of minority group representation, many have already voiced their concerns over the demographic makeup of the newly elected sabbatical team.

“I’m horrified that so few women were in the run for the sabbatical positions. Many of them were far stronger candidates than the men, I think they had far more experience in all the matters and I think it’s a really poor show on democracy at Warwick. Holly Rae should not have come fourth,” a Comparative American Studies student commented.

When asked how she felt about the results, Isha Webber, who came fourth in the race for the presidency, commented: “I’m feeling okay. Daniel will do a good job. You guys will be hearing from Warwick Anti-Sexism Society, because there were no women who won, all the women who ran came in the last three.”

Commenting on his successor, current Union President [Andrew Bradley](/news/andrew-bradley/) told the _Boar_, “He [Stevens] proved himself to be a serious and dedicated candidate on the campaign trail. It’s great to see what I think is our first international student as SU President,” he added.

Bradley said that despite it being a “very strong line-up for next year” he expressed agreement that females were underrepresented. “I would have liked to see at least some female representation, as there were some good female candidates this year.”

Commenting on what the newly elected sabbatical officers will have to deal with, Bradley said “tuition fees and the funding debate will dominate their year in office -– it will be an interesting dynamic to see this campaign be led by someone who paid international fees.”

The general feedback on the elections night was positive. “The election was well-organised, I just think it took too long in between announcing the winners for each position,” a third year English and Italian student told the _Boar_.

“I am pleased about the results, overall the people who worked the hardest and who cared about the issues have got the positions, I think they deserve it,” a third year PAIS student commented.

Stevens will now focus his mind on finishing his degree in the rest of the academic year. However, he told the _Boar_ that “during the summer I will do the same as I did before started running, finding solutions to the problems students had.

“I will devote my entire time during the summer to planning the next year. I don’t take this lightly, I love what I’m doing right now, I love that I’m in this position where I can actually change things, and I’m very hopeful for the year to come.”

### How the Single Transferable Vote works

The Single Transferable Vote (STV) is a system where voters indicate their choices of candidates in order of preference and thereby give proportional representation to candidates and minimize the number of “wasted” votes.

During the election, after all the votes have been counted, the candidate who has received the least number of votes is eliminated, and anyone who had voted for this candidate as their first preference will have their vote allocated to their second preference candidate. This process of eliminating last-place candidates and re-allocating votes continues until there is only one candidate remaining.

In short, your vote is allocated to candidates until you either do not mind who wins (No Further Preference) or do not feel that any of the remaining candidates is appropriate for the role (Re-Open Nominations or RON).

### Results
#### President

1. **Daniel Stevens**
2. Jack Collier
3. Asen Geshakov
4. Isha Webber
5. Anna Burchfield
6. Alex Di Mascio

#### Societies

1. **Andy White**
2. Tom Stickland
3. Pavan Shah
4. Annie Zafar

#### Finance

1. **Stuart Stanley**
2. Chris Rye
3. Thomas Wilkinson

#### Welfare

1. **Leo Boe**
2. Owain Griffiths
3. Carly Whitfield
4. Holly Rae Smith

#### Democracy and Comms

1. **Chris Luck**
2. Nicola Woolfe
3. Alex Fowles

#### Sports

1. **George Whitworth**
2. Thomas Morton
3. Jamie Powell
4. Peter Coppenhall

#### Education

1. **Sean Ruston**
2. Jamiesha Majevadia
3. Rich Sharred

#### Part-time officers

– Executive Committee Chair: Gareth Williams
– Academic Forum Co-ordinator: Iqra Musaddaq
– Campaigns Forum Co-ordinator: Megan Fortune
– Democracy Committee Chair: Victoria Fowler
– Societies Committee Chair: Rick Dewhurst-Lister
– Student Sport Commitee Chair: Kimberley Robinson
– Welfare Committee Chair: Sophie Allkins
– International Forum Co-ordinator: Akshay Bhatia
– Anti-Racism Campaigns Officer: Jehanzeb Khan
– Ethics and Social Justice Campaigns Officer: Fatema Karim
– Ethnic Minorities Campaigns Officer: Kate Rhule
– LGBTUA+ Campaigns Officer: Isobel John
– Undergraduate Arts Faculty Representative: Stephanie Poole
– Undergraduate Science Faculty Representative: John Lapage
– Undergraduate Social Sciences Faculty Representative: Erin Davies
– Second Senate Representative: Sean Ruston
– Second Council Representative: Stuart Stanley
– International Forum Members: Zeshan Shahid, Akansha Agarwal, Karan Shah, Akshath Parasrampuria, Re-Open Nominations