17.59% of students voted for their preferred candidates for the five full time Sabbatical Officer positions, ten part time officer roles, and four non officer positions. This represented a 6% drop in voter turnout from 2020.
Pierrick Roger won the race for Students’ Union President with 1492 votes, winning 55.5 percent of the vote after second-choice ballots were counted. York Vision spoke to all five newly-elected Sabbatical Officers after their wins.
Pierrick told Vision: “It felt amazing, I’m ecstatic.”
He said his first priority will be to “get rid of non-disclosure agreements. I’ve been saying it for so long and I can’t believe we still use them.”
Pierrick called these agreements “disgusting”, saying, “It needs to be investigated, and if we [YUSU] are using them [then] get rid of them.”
Pierrick told us the highlight of his campaign was “meeting so many people, even people I didn’t know reached out on Instagram or Facebook and proposed to campaign for me”.
Before this run for YUSU President, Pierrick was elected as YUSU’s Environment and Ethics Officer last year.
He told Vision this experience is “going to make cutting the bullshit so much easier”:
“That experience was so valuable in order to deal with people, whether the Union or the Uni.”
Pierrick’s manifesto centred around three points: cutting the cost of living, cutting barriers for students, and cutting the bullshit.
When asked about the top source of bullshit he wanted to cut, Pierrick said: “Lies, so many lies.
“I can’t stand it, if we’re not being honest then we don’t deserve to represent students at all.”
Pierrick went on to explain how he wants to involve PTOs more directly in decision making,
“I think PTOs represent such specific issues. If you speak to any of them they will be the expert in what they’re doing. They deserve attention and respect.
“As Environment Officer it was so hard to get my voice heard, I want PTOs to be involved every step of the way.”
Having just seen the new team elected, Pierrick said: “I’ve met most of them during campaigning and they’re amazing people”.
Hannah Nimmo was elected Community and Wellbeing Officer in the closest race of the night which saw her win by just 12 votes.
Asked how it feels to be the new Community and Wellbeing Officer, Hannah told Vision: “It feels absolutely insane.”
Hannah told Vision that her first priority in the role will be to “increase wellbeing training university-wide”:
“I think more wellbeing training needs to be put in place across society committees, sports team committees, department reps… across the board.”
Hannah also mentioned, “The need for more mental health awareness training and more access, inclusivity, and equality training.
“I’m going to work with our incoming Sabb candidates, our incoming PTOs, and make it all happen.”
Hannah reflected on her highlights of the campaign so far, mentioning Candidate Interview Night and Debate Night as “something I never thought I’d do”.
She also took time to praise the work of outgoing Community and Wellbeing Officer Kelly Balmer, calling her “a powerhouse of a Sabb”.
She said: “I’ve got big shoes to fill going into her role.”
Rohan Ashar was elected Activities Officer with over 1,500 votes in the first round.
Reacting to his election, Rohan told Vision: “I’ve never been this shocked and overwhelmed, it’s incredible.
“I’m happy and I don’t say that too often.”
Rohan was running against just one other student for the role.
He paid tribute to Joe Radford’s campaign in his speech on the night, telling Vision afterwards that, “From the start I believed that the silver lining if I didn’t win was that it would go to someone really capable of doing the role.”
Rohan recognised the similarities between his outlook and Joe’s, saying: “They have a very similar attitude towards student life as me. It’s about supporting students above everything.”
He’s keen to engage with Joe’s manifesto points and ideas after his own campaign.
“I will sit down with Joe, look at their manifesto, take some of their ideas and discuss it with them, because I think they had some really great ideas.”
Among these, Rohan said: “There is a case for a second bar on Hes East.”
Rohan’s first priority is inclusivity, telling us “that comes above everything.”
“Getting more people involved and making sure everyone can [get involved].
“All my points about accessibility, making the training resources widely available for staff and students, more accessibility information on promotional material, and pressuring the Uni to make sure more spaces are accessible”.
Asked about his favourite moment of the campaign, Rohan laughed and said: “Can I say the moment I won?!”
Franki Riley, the only current Sabb running for re-election, walked into her second term as York Sport Union President, beating out Ashraf Ahmed and Kieren Franklin in the first round of votes, with 57.4% percent of the first choice ballots.
Franki said she’s looking forward to “having a new team of Sabb officers and the challenge of being the only continuing Sabb, taking on a natural leadership role”; admitting that, “If you’d have asked me two weeks before announcing I was rerunning, I would’ve said ‘no’.”
With huge cheers erupting in the Roger Kirk Centre as Franki won it sounded like many were glad she changed her mind.
Deb was elected Academic Officer in the first round of votes with 1796 votes.
Fellow candidate Matt Best was eliminated in the first round of voting with only 903 votes.
The Academic Officer election had the highest turnout with 2,805 students casting votes.
When Vision asked how Deb felt coming off his big win he said: “I feel speechless,” and that he was extremely “thankful to everyone”, and made special mention, “to all my supporters, all my fans and my entire campaign team”.
On his choice to run Deb said it was due to “all my past experiences, I know how academics work”.
He also said he was excited to see “more diversity in this Academic Officer role”.
When asked what his number one priority would be on his first day in office Deb encouraged Vision to look at his manifesto points which he will be covering “from day one”.
Deb feels the biggest issue in the current academic running of the University is “the number of scholarship opportunities, internship opportunities and online courses” and wants to change that as soon as possible.
The newly elected Sabbatical Officers will take over from the existing officers in July.