Brandon University students took to the polls last week, and elected several new representatives in the BUSU by-elections.

Mohammed Taofiq was elected International Commissioner, Kris Keen was elected to the Disability Commissioner position and Manuel Godoy selected as the Racialized Commissioner. Greg Monias was chosen as both the Aboriginal Commissioner and the Music Senator.

In the only competition of the by-elections, Adham El-Emam defeated Cameron Flamand by a mere 15 votes to become the new Residence Commissioner.

BUSU President Carissa Taylor says that although voter turnout was low, it was not necessarily from lack of interest.

“[It] was likely that there were many students on campus who could not vote for a single position. There were no faculty commissioner positions available for students to vote for, so besides music senator, all other positions were self-declared constituency group representatives.”

“I don’t think that the relatively low turnout negatively reflects our students and their willingness to get involved in decision-making, but it rather reflects the positive results of having a lot of people run for positions during regular elections.”

Taylor adds she is looking forward to the rest of the year. “Because the majority of our council was elected and began on May 1st, we have a solid vision going forward into the second half of our terms, and can continue making progress instead of having to orient ourselves into our positions again. We have already accomplished some of our goals, and have the necessary framework in place to continue crossing goals off our priority-setting document throughout the rest of the year.”