CERRITOS, California – The Associated Students of Cerritos College have elected their new student body President, Vice-President and Student Trustee for the 2015-2016 academic year on Thursday.
The results of the election were announced Thursday night at 9:48 p.m. at the Student Activities office. Eduardo De La Rosa and Ivan Oyarzabal won the Presidential and Vice-Presidential election with 397 votes and Victor Villalobos won the Student Trustee election with 504 votes.
Villalobos says, “It was my first time participating in an election. I really enjoyed letting people know what I was about and what I wanted to contribute.”
Throughout the election week there were many students who were either campaigning or were asking questions to the campaigners. Oyarzabal says, “I thought the elections were an insight into the capabilities of student engagement. The true victory was watching hundreds of professionals in the making participate in local government.”
During the election week there was some controversy between candidates, campaigners and some Court Justices. Some of the controversies were between the Presidential candidates where it was said that some of the candidates had stolen the other candidate’s campaign statements and where others were speaking slander towards the other candidate. Usually these are grounds for fines from the Court Justices, but when brought to attention of the Justices they did not give any warnings and said that slander is a grey area and was allowed during campaigning.
Villalobos says, “Controversy, yes. Suleyma’s campaigners were upset that we would talk to the students she had just finished talking to.”
Villalobos also states, “It was quite interesting to say the least. Not to mention the actions and ruling of certain court members. One in particular was bias and unjust. It was upsetting to see that a student who was there to maintain the democratic process within the elections wasn’t doing it.”
Villalobos says he will address the issue to the court and senate and will be working with the students involved now and in the future to get the elections in a better direction.
The Falcon Weekly 