Anisha Faruk elected president of Oxford University Student Union

Anisha Faruk, a student of Bangladeshi origin, has been elected the president of Oxford University’s student union.

She picked up the highest number of votes in each round to win the presidency, according to The Oxford Student, the university's largest student newspaper.

After three rounds of preferential voting, the result of the annual election was announced at an event in the university’s Weston Library on Thursday.

Anisha, a third year undergraduate historian at the Queen’s College, is the daughter of retired Bangladesh Army major Faruk Ahmed. She served as the co-chair of the Oxford University Labour Club and was the editor-in-chief of The Oxford Student.

A candidate of the Oxford Impact panel, Anisha won a tough battle against her two rivals – Ivy Manning, an independent candidate and Ellie Milne-Brown, the candidate for the Aspire panel.

 

“Ellie was eliminated in the second round, collecting a total of 1022 votes against Anisha’s 1240 and Ivy’s 1095,” said The Oxford Student report. 

“Ivy picked up most of Ellie’s preferential votes, boosting her total to 1416 but this was not enough to unseat Anisha who finished with 1529, placing her over the 50% threshold to win.”

Approximately 20.3 percent of the student body voted.  

In an interview before the election, Anisha was asked why she thought her panel was special.  “I think the diversity of our slate is its strength,” she said.

“We all come from different parts of student life, from student politics to theatre to sport so I think we represent a lot of students in that between us we’ve experienced the breadth of student life and we can bring that representation to the SU.”

Established in 1961 as the Oxford University Student Representative Council, the student body aims to facilitate communication between students and university officials, as well as between students, local councils and the government.