By Nurin Najmina Zaidi
GOMBAK, 23 November 2020: A mega town hall was held on Sunday night (22 November) where students gained an update on the current position of their student body, IIUM Student Union (IIUMSU), to prepare them to face the coming campus election.
Organised by IIUMSU in collaboration with IIUM Student Union Election Commission (IIUMSUEC), the programme was divided into two sessions, where the first session was a talk on IIUMSU by the president of IIUMSU, Amir Nadzim, who is a fourth year Kulliyyah of Information and Communication Technology (KICT) student.
While the second session on IIUM Student Union (Campus) Election was conducted by the chairman of IIUMSUEC, Fiqri Shuib, who is a student from Kulliyyah of Economics and Management Sciences (KENMS).
Earlier before the town hall was held, Amir said, “IIUM Student Union is the highest student board in IIUM that covers student affairs in the university both financially and academically. It replaces the previous Students Representative Council (SRC).”
“The changes did not mean that the student union is far much better than the previous SRC as SRC itself was the main contributor for the establishment of IIUMSU,” Amir stressed.
Amir Nadzim was previously the vice president of the IIUMSU Protem Committee while Irham Dollah was the president.
For the upcoming election, it will be the first time in history where IIUMSU will be handled by the students. Before this, it was handled by the university’s management and a lecturer as chairman of the Election Commission where students participated as working committees.
Fiqri Shuib said, “It is the first time that there will be a contest for the president’s seat compared to the previous election for the SRC where the university’s management determined the selection of one of the candidate to be the president through a Syura.”
According to Fiqri, the changes are to ensure that students’ voices are being heard.
“In the upcoming election, general seats will be introduced where they will be contested throughout from different Kulliyyah, and students who decided to compete for the general seats will have to gain votes from the students.”
Some progress have already been made by IIUMSUEC even before the COVID-19 pandemic for the election to run smoothly. However, since the cases continued to rise, they have decided to pause the election for a while.
The town hall had also included details on IIUMSU campus election as follows:
- President’s Seat
- 4 General Seats
– Vice President
– Secretary General 1
– Secretary General 2
– Treasurer
- 8 Kulliyah’s Seats: (IRK and HS will be separated into two different constituency)
In conjunction with the election, the IIUMSUEC will initiate a soft launching campaign where they will introduce some programmes to make sure what the students need to know and understand regarding the election #ROADTOELECTION2021.
The first phase was a discussion on public opinion that touched on the election, the role of IIUMSUEC and IIUMSU’s responsibilities in general.
There is also a media initiative in a form of a video and infographic to illustrate how the election is going to be conducted and what the students need to know to become candidates.
It is still not confirmed if the student union election will be held online as there are things that need to be ironed out and are still in a discussion stage.
More about campus election will be available here:
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/IIUM-Election-Commission-100167898174667/
Instagram: https://instagram.com/iium.electioncommission?igshid=1x8vu28ipixjt
Twitter: https://twitter.com/iiumsu_ec ***