Yeehaw United’s Ela Akyol has been elected President of the Wollongong Undergraduate Student Association.
Running under a joint Labor caucus, Akyol received 302 votes, beating Left Action’s Jack Mansell by 34 votes.
In a significant move, both Labor factions decided to run under a joint caucus, making use of Unity, Labor Right’s youth faction name and Yeehaw, the ticket name the National Labor Students (NLS) faction ran under in last year’s WUSA election.
NLS member and outgoing WUSA President Jye Langley told the Tertangala, the move to join both Labor factions was done for political pragmatism.
“We agreed on our outlook for council next year, we worked really well in terms of policy and there were a few people who had positions on council this year that we really wanted to support for next year who were kinda independent, so we came together to put them up for council like our Disabilities Officer Aboudi.” they said.
Labor to dominate over WUSA
Yeehaw United has taken the majority of WUSA, with ten representative positions on council filled by eight members of the joint Labor caucus. While only electing four members, Socialist Alternative’s Left Action has filled six representative positions on council, with all four members elected as National Union of Student General Representatives.
In a celebratory Facebook post, Left Action congratulated their four elected members in their election wins, with both Education Officer and Environmental Representative once again going to SAlt.
“We’d also like to congratulate our members Jamie (Caulfield) and Sean (McLachlan) for being elected to the WUSA Education and Environment portfolios, which we have held this year as well,” the post said.
“The last few days have been an incredible opportunity to talk to students about the need for a left-wing, fighting student union, and we’re stoked to have had hundreds of people throw their support behind us.
“Looking forward to causing some trouble in 2023!”
Neither parties nor any independent candidates ran for Ethnocultural Representative or Tertangala Coordinator, leaving both roles vacant.
Akyol will be Young Labors fifth WUSA President.
The Tertangala has reached out to Akyol for a comment but have yet to receive one.