FuTASTIC pres. candidate Sun drops out of race

Class of 2014 presidential candidate Kathy Sun dropped out of her race on Sunday, making incumbent Akshay Shah the winner by default.

Sun’s withdrawal followed controversy over the outcome of the race. While Shah won the popular vote during last week’s election, votes were deducted from all members of his party, DemocraSEAS, due to fliering violations. Consequently, Sun, a member of the party known as FuTASTIC ’14, was initially announced as the winner by a margin of two votes.

Shah disputed the results, and a hearing was held on Friday to decide whether to return votes to DemocraSEAS. According to the council bylaws, ESC is not allowed to take votes away from the entire party for the actions of one person.

During the hearing, the persons who posted the illegal fliers came forward, and votes were returned to Shah—which made him tie with Sun. As a result, a re-vote was scheduled for next week, according to an email sent by Carla Williams, SEAS ’11, current VP Internal and Secretary of Elections.

But on Sunday afternoon, before another vote could take place, Sun sent an email to the elections committee saying that she was leaving the race. She then met with Williams, who declined to comment beyond her public email.

“I fundamentally disagree with many of the decisions made throughout the process because they were unfair to myself, the other candidate, and the student body—for ideological reasons I’m choosing to withdraw,” Sun said on Sunday.

“As an individual and part of this institution, I think it’s ridiculous that [for] a position that’s like community service … there would be so much cheating going on,” Sun added.
Upon learning that Sun had dropped out of the race earlier on Sunday evening, Shah expressed surprise.

“I’m confused. I’m really concerned. To be frank I’m very sorry that she did withdraw. … I told her right after the hearing that she’d make a very good president and invited her to give out class T-shirts tomorrow [with ESC],” Shah said.

Shah admitted that his party had broken some rules during the campaign process.

“We committed flier violations, essentially. But I think our volunteers were very excited—we got a couple of volunteers to put the fliers up for us. … It was a miscommunication and it was some fault on our part because we didn’t make it clear enough that they weren’t supposed to do it,” Shah said.

Later in the evening, Shah said he had spoken with Sun on the phone and that there were “no hard feelings” between them, adding that Sun hoped to work with the council in the coming year.

Sun said she has come to terms with her decision to leave the race.

“Akshay did technically have the popular vote, I don’t know how the details of the cheating affected that. … I’ve talked to my party and I do have their blessing to withdraw,” Sun said.

Regardless of the situation, Shah said he plans to do everything he can to make next year’s class of 2014 council a success.

“Things I hope to do are things I mentioned in my manifesto. … One of the most big events next year is going to be major declaration for engineers, and I really want to make sure all the engineers get all the help they can from our side,” Shah said, adding that he hoped to host events with career professionals from engineering fields.

Some students felt that the controversy was unnecessary.

“If she won, she won. If he didn’t play by the rules then he deserved to not win,” Yoachim Haynes, SEAS ’14, said.

Others sided with DemocraSEAS’ initial desire to reevaluate the results.

“I guess they could have done a recount,” Sophie Zhang, SEAS ’13, said.

The members of Sun’s party who were elected said that they were supportive of their presidential candidate.

“I think it was fair, they did what they had to do. I understand her decision. I think she would’ve made a great president,” Daniel O’Leary, SEAS ’14 and class of 2014 representative for next year, said.

Moving forward, Sun said she had only good wishes for Shah in the coming year.

“I wish him best of luck,” Sun said, adding that she was happy that three-quarters of the council will be FuTASTIC members. "I think it’ll make for an excellent counterpoint in discussions.”

sonalee.rau@columbiaspectator.com