Calling all University of Melbourne students! Your 2018 student elections have almost arrived! Nominations have now closed, and the candidates have been announced.

The presidential candidates from major factions, More! and Stand Up!, are Callum Simpson and Molly Willmott, respectively. Simpson is the current environment office bearer (OB), while Willmott is the women’s OB. The other presidential candidates are Christopher Kounelis from Choice, Xavier Boffa from the Liberals, as well as Zhiyu Zhao and Natasha Prasad—who are both independent candidates.

The UMSU student elections are based around a faction system. The factions include More!, Stand Up!, Choice, Melbourne Socialists (previously Left Focus), Independent Media, The Biggest Blackest Ticket, and several smaller factions.

The two major factions at Melbourne are More! and Stand Up!. These factions commonly compete for the majority of the Office Bearer positions. This year, in exchange for four of More!’s National Union of Students’ (NUS) delegates, Stand Up! is not contesting the OB positions for disabilities, People of Colour or queer. The deal also stated that Stand Up! would not run any candidates from Socialist Alternative or the Labor right club for NUS delegate positions.

Arguably the most important positions within UMSU are the OBs, as they run UMSU’s many student representative departments. This list compiles the nominated OBs alongside their factional alignments:

Choice…
Ambrose Berlin, education (academic affairs)
Benedict Kusay, education (public affairs)
Matthew Carlei, general secretary
Christopher Kounelis, president

Independent Media…
Katherine Doherty, media
Stephanie Zhang, media
Carolyn Huane, media
Ruby Perryman, media

Melbourne Socialists…
Melinda Suter, education (public affairs)
Nick Reich, education (public affairs)
Anneke Demanuele, environment
Emily White, general secretary
Terrence Taylor, People of Colour
Shontelle Fisher, VCA

More!…
Liam O’Brien, activities
Olivia Panjkov, activities
Christopher Melenhorst, clubs and societies
Jordan Tochner, clubs and societies
Eloie Hammill, creative arts
Lucy Holz, creative arts
Lucy Birch, disabilities
Jocelyn Deane, disabilities
Brock Manson, education (academic affairs)
Jessica Chen, education (academic affairs)
Guy Coward, education (public affairs)
Madeleine Johnson, education (public affairs)
Aia Newport, environment
Will Ross, environment
Elinor Mills, general secretary
Farah Khairat, People of Colour
Mark Yin, People of Colour
Callum Simpson, president
Andie Moore, queer
Will Parker, queer
Hilary Ekins, VCA
Ashwin Chhaperia, welfare
Natasha Guglielmino, welfare
Dilpreet Kaur, women’s
Rose-Monet Wilson Scott, women’s

Stand up!…
Elisabeth Tembo, education (academic affairs)
Ru Bee Chung, education (academic affairs)
Cameron Doig, education (public affairs)
Charlotte Fouhy, education (public affairs)
Reece Moir, general secretary
Molly Willmott, president
Noni Bridger, welfare
Rajan Dominic Roque Ilagan, welfare
Criselda (Aria) Sunga, women’s
Hannah Buchan, women’s

The Biggest Blackest Ticket…
Serena Rae Thompson, Indigenous
Alexandra Hohoi, Indigenous

Independents…
Holly Alexander, activities, clubs and societies
Yujing Xie, activities, clubs and societies and media
Adnan Ali Khan, activities and education (public affairs)
Ioannis Sidiropoulos, creative arts
Jan Maruska, creative arts, media, VCA and queer
Zhiyu Zhao, president, education (academic affairs and public affairs), women’s and general secretary
Natasha Prasad, president and general secretary
James Barclay, Burnley

The Independent Media candidates will be provisionally elected unopposed to the media office, because at least three individuals are required to run for the office and the independents are by themselves. Due to no opposition, James Barclay is provisionally elected as Burnley campus coordinator, and Jocelyn Deane and Lucy Birch are provisionally elected as disabilities OBs. Every other OB position is contested.

You will also be voting for committee members, NUS delegates, a University council member, general representatives for the student’s council as well as autonomous student’s council representatives if you identify with any autonomous collectives.

Now that you are well-learned on all the happenings of the 2018 UMSU student election, it is almost time to vote. Polling will be open 3–7 September.

Note: Farrago is using the provisional list of nominees provided by the returning officer, which you can find here. Several nominations are still under question.