The Islami Chhatra Shibir-backed panel Shampritir Shikkharthi Jote has won 24 out of 26 posts, including vice-president and general secretary, in the Chittagong University Central Students’ Union elections held on Wednesday.
The CUCSU elections were held after 35 years amid some alleged irregularities.
In Wednesday’s polls, the remaining two posts were won by candidates from the Bangladesh Jatiatabadi Chatra Dal-backed panel and an independent panel.
After counting votes at 14 halls and one hostel, the results were announced by CUCSU chief election commissioner professor Monir Uddin at about 4:30am on Thursday, stating that about 65 per cent of the 27,531 voters cast their votes.
According to the results, history department student Ibrahim Hossain Rony, also the president of the Shibir’s Chattogram South unit, was elected VP with 7,983 votes, defeating Chhatra Dal’s Sajjad Hossain Hridoy, who got 4,374 votes. For the GS post, Shibir candidate Saeed Bin Habib received 8,031 votes, while his closest rival Shafayat Hossain of Chhatra Dal polled 2,714 votes.
In the assistant general secretary race, Chhatra Dal’s Ayubur Rahman Tawfiq won with 7,014 votes, defeating Shibir’s Sazzad Hossain Munna who got 5,045 votes.
Candidates from the Shampritir Shikkharthi Jote also secured most of the other secretary positions, including sports, cultural, women’s welfare, environment, health, research, IT and human rights.
Taslima Mahbub Preeti from the Binirman Shikkharthi Oikya panel secured the assistant sports secretary post.
The other winners from the Shampritir Shikkharthi Jote panel include Mohammad Shah Alam (sports secretary), Harez Matabbar (cultural secretary), Jannatul Adan Nusrat (assistant office secretary) and Nahima Akhter Deepa (women’s affairs secretary).
For the executive member positions, Jannatul Ferdous Sanjida, Adnan Sharif, Akash Dash, Salman Farsi and Sohanur Rahman were elected.
Shibir also won most of the posts in the recently held student union elections in Dhaka University and Jahangirnagar University.
In an immediate reaction after the results were announced, Ibrahim Hossain Rony said, ‘Many have contested this election, but we hope to work together for the welfare of all students.’
Polling took place from 9:30am to 4:00pm on Wednesday across 15 centres at five faculty buildings without any major irregularities reported. Vote counting began at about 6:40pm in the Social Science, Business Administration, Science, Engineering, and Shaheed Hriday Chandra Tarua (New Arts) faculty buildings.
Chittagong University last held its CUCSU elections in 1990.
This year, 27,516 students were eligible to vote, including 11,156 female students. A total of 908 candidates contested the polls — 415 for 26 central posts and 493 for 14 hall councils and one hostel council.
Earlier, in 1981, the Islami Chhatra Shibir, the student wing of the Bangladesh Jamaat-e-Islami, had won a full panel in the CUCSU polls.
The last elections took place in 1990 and since then, a total of seven elections, including Wednesday’s ones, had been held, most of which were dominated by the Bangladesh Chhatra League, which is now banned, and left-leaning student organisations, including the Bangladesh Chhatra Union.
Since the establishment of Chittagong University in 1966, the first students’ union elections were held in 1970.
