Anna Katycheva

Anna Katycheva

Students’ Society Councillor Maggie Knight was elected SSMU president Friday night, beating opponent Cathal Rooney-Céspedes with 67.2 per cent of the 4,172 votes cast.

Chief Electoral Officer Tais McNeil made the announcement in a two-thirds full Gert’s, which erupted in celebration at the announcement. A number of audience members chanted “Maggie! Maggie! Maggie!”

“It’s really heartwarming for me to see that people believe in my abilities to do this work,” Knight said.

Approximately 21 per cent of undergraduates voted in the elections.

In general, the crowd expressed overwhelming enthusiasm for each winner announced.

Rooney-Céspedes was surprised by the large deficit, but said Knight won for a simple reason.

“More people came out to vote for her,” he said.  “The day that campaigning started, her Facebook event had something like 50 people on it, because she had the support of all of Council.”

Knight attributed her success to the help she received on her campaign.

“I had a campaign team of 60 people. I don’t know if that’s the biggest ever, but it’s certainly close,” she said.  “It was exciting to know it was worthwhile.”

The election for VP clubs and services was the night’s tightest, with Fraser, a coordinator with Midnight Kitchen, beating Fabian, the current interest group coordinator, by a mere 27 votes.

“It’s a real honour,” Fraser said. “Monika Fabian ran a really good campaign and I think she would have been just as good as me, and I think it was reflected in the vote.”

The four-candidate race for VP internal was also tight. Todd Plummer inched out Kady Paterson  (24.3 per cent) and Natalie Talmi (24.0 per cent) with 25.4 per cent of the vote.

Many thought the election for VP university affairs would be close, but Emily Clare beat opponent Lauren Hudak by 10.8 per cent.

“I had an incredible team campaigning for me,” Clare said. “I couldn’t have done it without them.”

Shyam Patel won the VP finance and operations election handily, and Joël Pedneault was acclaimed VP external.

All five of the referendum questions passed, including ones that increased funding to the Midnight Kitchen and TV McGill. Students also approved increases to the SSMU Ambassador Fee; funding for Queer McGill, Nightline, and the Union for Gender Empowerment; and the creation of a fee for the McGill International Students’ Network.

Jason Leung and Matthew Crawford were elected Arts senators.  Annie Ma and Max Luke were elected Science senators with 35.5 and 36.8 per cent of the vote, respectively.  Ryan Kirsch, Emil Briones, Ian Clarke, and Haley Dinel were acclaimed Dentistry, Music, Law, and Religious Studies senators, respectively. Tom Acker became Management Senator with 39.0 per cent of the vote, while  Usman bin Shahid was elected Engineering senator with 50.0 per cent of the vote. Sameer Apte was elected Medicine senator with 40.8 per cent of the vote.

“Next year’s executive is excited to work together,” Fraser said.

“We got to know each other during the campaign. We were all really supportive,” she said.