BUSU election results called into question

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This article was published 29/04/2020 (1995 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

More than a month after the Brandon University Students’ Union held its annual elections, the results have yet to be fully ratified and a dispute has arisen between candidates and the organization.

In a post made to BUSU’s Facebook page on Monday and sent out to students via email, outgoing vice-president internal Whitney Hodgins wrote that the internal Elections and Referenda Disciplinary Interpretation and Enforcement Board, more commonly known as the ERDIE board, had ratified the winners for all winners of the Feb. 28 election except in the categories of president and vice-president internal.

The post went on to say that all candidates for those positions had been disqualified. Hodgins placed second in the presidential race, behind incumbent Olusola Akintola. Akintola’s wife Abosede, also known as Janet, won the election for the position of vice-president internal.

When reached for comment on Monday evening, Akintola told the Sun that he was not previously aware of the Facebook post. However, he confirmed that there were issues with the election and that he and his wife have enlisted legal counsel in a dispute with the students union.

A letter was sent from the Akintolas’ lawyer to BUSU’s lawyer dated April 20. A copy of the letter was provided to the Sun.

It says that on March 16, Olusola was summoned to an emergency ERDIE meeting to take place the following day about the election. Olusola told the Sun that he appeared at the meeting but did not participate because he believed members of that board had conflicts of interest against him.

On March 18, the ERDIE board posted a letter to both the BUSU Facebook page and website asking that students who experienced “any form of intimidation, threat, or undue influence” to come forward. Students who were coerced into voting, surveilled while voting or who witnessed any irregular activities while voting were also asked to come forward.

Speaking to the Sun via email on Tuesday, Hodgins said that the first she heard of any problems with the election was when this Facebook post was made by the ERDIE board. Furthermore, she said that she and her fellow candidates should have been notified of these concerns sooner, in accordance with the union’s bylaws.

The letter from the Akintolas’ lawyer then said at a meeting on April 16, the ERDIE board said there were three allegations made against Olusola and his campaign manager and they recommended that the general student union council not ratify the results of the elections for president and vice-president. 

When asked what the complaints were about, Olusola said he did not know.

It concludes by saying that the ERDIE board made their decision to nullify the election results for the president and vice-president internal without allowing Olusola to defend himself and that legal action will proceed if his and Janet’s election victories were not ratified within a week of the letter’s date, which was Monday.

“I found out we were essentially all disqualified in the presidential and vice-president internal categories because of supposedly someone breaching election bylaws, but no names were mentioned,” Hodgins said about the April 16 meeting. She also said she posted publicly about what happened for transparency’s sake so that the student body would know about the situation.

In the comments to Hodgins’ Facebook post, outgoing student union vice-president external and ERDIE board member April Li said the disciplinary board had not disqualified any candidates but simply presented the findings of its investigations and then the general council had made the decision to not ratify the two excluded positions.

Li’s post said the minutes to that meeting will be made public. However, BUSU has not uploaded the minutes to any board meeting to its website since November 2018. 

Requests to speak with ERDIE board chair Natashalee Thompson and April Li were not returned by press time. A post made to the BUSU Facebook group on Tuesday afternoon said that a special board meeting has been called for Thursday at 5 p.m., though it does not specifically say it is related to the election.

» cslark@brandonsun.com

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