ICU Elections: Student disillusion casts pall over Union President race

Student disillusionment dominated the race for Imperial College Union’s next President, as over 40% of voters opted for candidates with no manifesto promises.

Incumbent Union President Camille Boutrolle won re-election, but was trailed closely by Cedric Poon, who emerged as the dark horse of the race with a campaign that capitalised on disaffection with the university.

Poon was just 11 percentage points behind Boutrolle in the final round of voting, winning 951 votes to Boutrolle’s 1,253.

‘I’m not here to promise you a better future, or any future at all,’ he declared. ‘I’m by no means competent. I’m here purely out of spite.’

‘Imperial has taken too much from me [and] from us… We need them to know they can’t do whatever they want while pretending everything’s fine. Get me elected and I’ll make the whole system a dumpster fire.’

He took aim at overseas tuition fees, Imperial’s muted response to criticism of its new logo, and previous Union Presidents whom he accused of being ‘personality-less NPC[s]’ and ‘kissing Imperial’s cake’.

150 first-round votes went to James White, whose manifesto read: ‘I like trucking’ and linked to a music video with the same title. He told students to ‘Vote for Will’.

William Carter did not supply a manifesto for his campaign, but still secured 69 first-round votes.

107 students voted to re-open nominations.

STV

Imperial College Union runs its elections under the single transferable vote (STV) system, in which voters rank candidates in order of preference.

Voters can rank as many or as few candidates as they like, and if they feel none of the candidates are suitable, can instead vote to re-open nominations (RON).

The candidate with the fewest votes is eliminated and their votes are transferred to the voter’s next preference. This continues until one candidate has more than half of all votes, and is declared the winner.