Get to Know Your Council Candidates

NewsHilary Sinclair & Brian Lapuz — Published November 29, 2011

Of the four candidates running for five empty student Council seats in the current Concordia Student Union byelection, three are to represent the John Molson School of Business and one is an independent student.

The Link thought you should know a bit more about the potential future councillors, so allow us to introduce the three JMSB candidates.

Omar Abdullahi, the sole candidate for independent students, could not be reached for comment by press time.

EDUARDO ALVES DOS ANJOS

Dos Anjos is a Concordia business administration student who aspires to get more JMSB students involved in school politics.

“The number of students at JMSB who don’t care about student politics is stupefying,” said dos Anjos. “A few of them are interested but barely know how to get involved or where to go to voice their opinion.”
He hopes to act as a liaison between JMSB and the CSU and “bring new suggestions to the table to give more privileges and advantages to JMSB students in order to make their university experience more exciting and beneficial,” he said.

Past volunteer experience with humanitarian activities instilled a fire to help others in him and prepared him for a leadership role, he added.

When asked if he supported the new proposed bylaws, dos Anjos said that he supports the CSU’s position when it comes to fighting tuition hikes.

YASSINE CHAABI

Chaabi, an international student, said his priority is to enter into dialogue with students for them to air their grievances. He would like to pass the concerns of JMSB students along to the CSU Council.

“I’m not a shy person,” said Chaabi. “If something needs to be defended, then I will defend it loud and clear, to protect and reinforce the voice of students.”

Paying about $10,000 per semester to study, Chaabi said he feels like things are only getting worse every year. “Where did the [tuition fee] hike come from?” said Chaabi, referring to the increase that will see students paying $1,625 more per year by 2017. “I’m against it.

“We students have already a lot of things to worry about, such as rent, the high price of books, food, etc. It’s scandalous.”

Chaabi added that he thinks a lot of things can be done with the CSU budget to improve the daily lives of students. “Why not try to find solutions for the books that cost too much?,” he said.

Chaabi also sits on the Appointments Committee and said he’s “pretty up to date with all the scandals [this semester].”

He declined to comment on the new bylaws currently on the referendum ballot, which include a decrease of $0.50 per credit for the Union Building Fund fee, among other things, saying, “I am not completely familiar with them.”

MUSEB ABU-THURAIA

Besides wanting “to give JMSB a voice” in the student union, Museb Abu-Thuraia said his number one priority is tackling the provincial tuition fee hikes.

“I want to see how I can work with the current executives and councillors to put pressure on the government to freeze tuition,” said Abu-Thuraia.

With regards to the CSU’s new bylaws on the referendum ballot, Abu-Thuraia said he agrees with the decrease of $0.50 per credit for the Union Building Fund fee.

He added that he would like to see the remaining $1.50 per credit stay under that name, seeing as the ballot question says it would be replaced as a Student Space, Accessible Education & Legal Contingency Fund.

Abu-Thuraia has been involved in the Muslim community, both at Vanier College and Concordia University, for the last six years. He has been the president of the Muslim Student Association at Concordia for two years, and ran with the Action slate during the last CSU election, but did not get the councillor seat.

“When I ran the first time, I didn’t know the game very well,” said the candidate. “I was surprised with all the dirty politics.”

Surprised by “a lot of shady things happening” during last semesters’ election, Abu-Thuraia was not part of the executive Action slate, and said he wasn’t sure if his team knew they were breaking the rules. He said he feels the situation has been dealt with accordingly.