Three candidates, Rand Khatib (Grassroots), Angus Fisher (NLS), and Thomas Thorpe (Liberal) will run in the SRC Presidential election this year in an unexpected three-way race.
Khatib is currently serving as one of the SRC’s Womens Officer’s and has played a central role in pro-Palestinian activism on campus this year. If elected, Khatib would be the fifth Grassroots President in a row to lead the SRC, as well as the first Palestinian SRC President in history.
Fisher also currently serves on the SRC as an Executive. This will be his second election this year, after running an unsuccessful campaign to join the USU Board.
Thorpe previously served as the SRC Interfaith Officer and has been part of the Liberal faction on campus, contributing to The Sydney Tory and supporting multiple conservative tickets such as Lift for SRC last year.
A 10-person Honi Soit ticket “Spill for Honi” has also been nominated. The ticket includes Ellie Robertson, Mehnaaz Hossain, Purny Ahmed, Ondine Karpinellison, Lotte Weber, Imogen Sabey, Emilie Garcia-Dolnik, Annabel Li, Aidan Pollock, and Will Winter.
All 10 are regular Honi contributors, with most pitching and writing multiple articles last semester.
The Honi election is not without competition, with ticket “JJames.” nominated to run against Spill for Honi. The individual candidate, namely, James, did not provide their last name. Honi suspects this to be a joke ticket.
Sixty-two tickets for SRC Council and nine tickets for NUS delegates have also been provisionally nominated.
Of these tickets, familiar to students will be the usual suspects of Grassroots, Switch, and Left Action. Reflecting the large-scale pro-Palestinian student movements of the last year, many tickets appear to be based around Palestinian activism, such as ‘Student Intifada’ and ‘Free Palestine’.
There also appears to be a Colleges ticket on the ballot, running under the immensely creative title of ‘Colleges’.
Other factions include Penta, which traditionally represents international students, as well as Artistry, which will campaign for fine arts students.
On-campus polling for the election will occur from September 24 to September 26, with an in-person and online campaign starting in the weeks before.
Polling locations will include the Jane Foss Russell building, Fisher Library, Manning House, Susan Wakil Health building, Peter Nicol Russell building, and the Conservatorium of Music.
The official ballot will be drawn next week.
