NSA choses new president

After some initial confusion regarding the voting system, the students of Edinburgh Napier University Students' Association elected their new president.

Fourth year economics with management student Kasia Bylinska was delighted when she spoke to The Journal immediately after her victory: “I just can’t believe it! I just don’t know what to say, it’s still sinking in. I’m very surprised.”

She claimed a narrow victory from her main rival candidate Rik Carranza, who was also beaten in last year’s elections by current president Carys Evans.

Ms Bylinska acknowledged Rik’s efforts: “It was so close. I respect Rik and the others for such a clean race.”

Mr Carranza ran on a ticket with Stuart Campbell and Antony Harris for the positions of campaigns and representation officer, and treasurer, respectively. Only Mr Campbell was voted in.

The role of treasurer went to Ollie Cruickshank, a fourth year sport and exercise science student. Carys Evans told The Journal that this is proof that running on ticket doesn’t always work.

The remaining two presidential candidates were commended for their brave battle as the lack of support from fellow students meant that, once the counting began, it was clear neither had a hope. Arvydas Jadevicius gained only 133 votes and was visibly frustrated.

Mr Jadevicius, a first year property and management student, announced in good humour that his ballots were hardly worth counting before acknowledging that he was disadvantaged from the start with a very small campaign team.

Fellow candidate Idris Alagbe, a first year economics and management student, ran a respectable campaign based on bringing all students together despite racial or religious differences. Yet he was also faced with a disapointing lack of support.

After gaining a respectable 362 votes he told The Journal: “I am happy. I tried my best on my own but I needed people to work with me. I just need more support and more time. I’ll be back next year.”

The polls were open at five campuses across Napier including Merchiston, Craighouse and Craiglockhart. Students had many opportunities to vote in the five working days before the count on Friday 13 March when the votes were painstakingly counted by hand via the Alternative Transferrable Voting (ATV) system.

In order to encourage students to have their voice heard, lollipops were handed out to each student who voted. The turnout was impressive and was unofficially thought by Ms Evans to be the highest yet at Napier with 1704 voting for the presidential position alone.

The counting took place at Merchiston Place and The Journal was in attendance to record the proceedings. There were five positions to be decided including president and it took up to 12 volunteers four tension filled hours to hand count and double check all the ballots.

Due to an unsurprising human error during the third, and somewhat confusing, round of the presidential results, counting had to be started again from scratch – much to the annoyance of the nervous candidates who were permitted to be present.

When The Journal asked why they had not implemented an electronic voting system like the one EUSA used, it was explained that EUSA have an IT manager and unfortunately NSA can not afford this service. It was also suggested that EUSA’s athletics society alone has more money than Napier’s entire Students' Association.