Warwick SU Elections results night 2024
On Friday 8 March 2024, the SU Spring Election results were announced. After a week of campaigning, attending Question Time events, and interviews, The Boar caught the reactions of the newly-elected SU officers and NUS delegates.
The first results to be announced were for the NUS delegates.
We spoke to one of the newly-elected delegates, James Martin, about his experience campaigning.
Martin commented: “I was actually one of the few people that was campaigning for NUS. But I had a really good time. I had a lot of good conversations with people.”
Next, The Boar spoke with the first of the successful Part-Time Officer candidates, Mads
Wainman and Nye Steele, who ran jointly for the position of Disabled Students' Officer (DSO).
Wainman, the incumbent DSO, told The Boar they feel “really fortunate [to represent] disabled students on campus and to focus on campaigns”.
They added: “This week has been significantly less stressful considering last year my race was quite
tight.”
Steele said he found the week of campaigning “enjoyable”.
Discussing the key priorities for upcoming campaigns, the pair expressed their commitment to continuing Wainman's campaign on suicide prevention and stressed the importance of focusing on improving accommodation for disabled students on campus.
Newly-elected Women’s Officer, Gursimar Kaur, told The Boar: “I think it’s great that I won on International
Women’s Day.”
Kaur discussed plans to collaborate with the Ethnic Minorities Officer (EMO) and
emphasised her aim to improve opportunities at the University of Warwick for women of colour.
Aden Wood, one of the newly-elected Widening Participation Officers, elected alongside Mathew
Stephenson, spoke with The Boar.
Wood commented on his upcoming transition into the role: “It will be hit and miss, because I’ll have a lot to learn while I’m going, because it’s quite new to me.”
Following Wood was successful Environment & Ethics Officer (EE) candidate, Raj Hacker, who spoke about his planned Plastic-Free Pop! campaign.
On transitioning into the role, he said: “I think I have already got quite a decent experience helping with campaigns around campus. I look forward to working with the PTOs and FTOs in the future.”
Hacker reflected on interactions with students from campaigning.
Throughout the week, he found people were fans of his 'Hacker Time' campaign, inspired by a beloved CBBC sketch show.
Summer and Amber were announced as the new LGBTQUA+ Officers.
They were not present on
results night. However, The Boar spoke with their campaign manager about the experience of encouraging
students to vote last week.
The biggest challenge they faced “was making sure that people in the LGBTQ+ community actually voted”.
They were pleasantly surprised at the interactions this year: “We’ve had notoriously low turnout at elections in the last few years, so it’s great to see that people have actually engaged in democracy.”
Next announced were the Trans Students' Officers for the upcoming year, Isra Rai and Dorian Valentine. However, they were not present on the night.
Songjia Cao was then announced as the successful candidate for Ethnic Minorities Officer (EMO).
Cao said that she had no prior experience campaigning, although she “found it quite interesting”.
Cao was surprised by how many people asked questions and was pleased by the “enthusiastic” interactions she had with students.
Cao was also grateful to have been entrusted with the new role, astonished to have not been “R.O.N.ed” (to win fewer votes than 'Re-open Nominations') as an unopposed candidate.
Results for the EMO election were the final Part-Time Officer ones to be announced on the night.
The first incoming Full-Time Officer was then announced: Naomi Carter, the newly-elected Vice President (VP) for Welfare and Campaigns.
The Boar spoke with Carter about building on the work of the current VP, incoming SU President Enaya Nihal.
Carter spoke about her desire to talk with Nihal, commenting that she would “look at how that overlaps with my manifesto priorities”.
Carter went on to say she would “aim to map out some sort of roadmap about what is most achievable and what is the highest priority”.
After having been on a year abroad and promoting her successful campaign for Women’s Officer online during the pandemic, Carter commented that campaign week was “intense” and “exciting”.
The next candidate, who also found campaigning to be “emotionally intense”, was the incoming VP for Democracy and Development, Sasha King-Smith.
King-Smith mentioned how she vigorously promoted her campaign and spoke to people “who have no reason to listen to you”, which made the process
“tiring”.
Smith hoped the upcoming general election would create a greater interest among students in politics, as elections tend to make people “more invested in the democratic process”.
Smith added that the voter
turnout was “surprising, knowing the student body is over 28,000”.
She concluded by raising the question: “Who are the people that aren’t engaged? Where are they, and what’s going on there?”
The incoming Sports Officer is Louis Gosling, who won by a tight margin.
Gosling wishes to take a “really holistic approach towards student sports”.
Gosling continued: “Like I said to RAW (Radio at Warwick), I’ve done basically nothing (in terms of campaigning), but, like, I think the real campaign for me hasn’t been this week – it’s been the whole year.”
After speaking with The Boar, in true sporting fashion, Gosling enthusiastically posed with Boaris (The Boar's mascot) in one hand and a pint of purple in the other.
We then spoke with the newly-elected VP for Societies, Joe Stanley.
Stanley said he found campaigning “enjoyable”,
adding: “I love walking around just speaking to people, posting everywhere, remembering the locations as well.”
He went on to say that when out campaigning, feedback from students was “generally positive”.
Stanley concluded by saying that students are “open to ideas” and they expect to “see some change” for the upcoming year.
The penultimate candidate announcement of the evening was for Muneeba Amjad, who was announced as the new Vice President for Education.
Amjad commented that campaigning was “quite stressful, but then I kind of relaxed halfway through the week”.
Amjad continued: “We made some signs [and] put them up on Library Bridge and [in] the Piazza; we put up some posters as well as flyering.”
Amjad also reiterated
the importance of keeping to her manifesto commitments, particularly in terms of keeping self-certifications and extensions accessible to all students.
Finally, we congratulated the newly-elected President of the Students' Union: Enaya Nihal.
Nihal expressed gratitude to her team, and “every single student who voted (for her)”.
She went on to say how pleased she was: “Genuinely, it’s made my year.”
The Boar asked what Nihal expected for the transition from VP Welfare and Campaigns, her current position, to President, to which Nihal replied: “I think it’s going to be a hefty but good transition.
“But, I think the shift in responsibilities of the role are a little bit bigger.
“So, I am really excited, but I think it’s going to be a tough transition but hopefully a good one.”
Nihal also expressed her responsibility to reassure those who may not have voted for her.
She commented: “Whichever issues that you think another candidate might have done better for you, please let me know how I can do that. I’m happy to listen. That is my job, to listen to the student body and take their demands forward.”
On her experience campaigning this week, Nihal spoke about her many interactions with students.
Nihal commented: “There’s been some negative feedback obviously, as there will be about the SU not representing them properly earlier. But I think we’ve taken that in our stride.”
She went on to say: “I honestly thought, even if I lose, those interactions that I’ve had this week where students have come up to me like 'that thing you' did really helped, or 'I think you are a good person to represent us'. That sort of thing has been amazing.”
The interview concluded with Nihal posing enthusiastically with Boaris.
The 2024 Warwick SU Elections saw the highest voter turnout in recent years, with over 5,500 student voters overall.
The full results are as follows:
Full-Time Officers:
President: Enaya Nihal
Vice President for Education: Muneeba Amjad
Vice President for Democracy and Development: Sasha King-Smith
Vice President for Welfare and Campaigns: Naomi Carter
Vice President for Societies: Joe Stanley
Vice President for Sports: Louis Gosling
Part-Time Officers:
Disabled Students' Officer: Mads Wainman and Nye Steele
Environment and Ethics Officer: Raj Hacker
Ethnic Minorities Officer: Songjia Cao
LGBTQUA+ Officer: Summer and Amber
Trans Students' Officer: Dorian Valentine and Isra Rai
Widening Participation Officer: Mathew Stephenson and Aden Wood
Women's Officer: Gursimar Kaur
NUS Conference Delegates - NUS National Conference Delegates:
James Martin
Raj Hacker
James Varney
Otto Oldridge
Grace Lewis
Mads Wainman
Isra Rai
Sophie Clark
A list of all successful candidates and voting statistics can be found here, courtesy of the Warwick Students' Union
The Boar would like to thank RAW1251 AM for working with us to cover this year's SU Elections.
Candidate interviews and further coverage of this year's results night can be found here, courtesy of RAW Visual
Special thanks to Archie Clarke, Grace Goodwin, Rachel Gore, Emily Neville, and Martin Day for all their fantastic work covering this year's SU results night.
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