State of the Union: Charlotte Ivers wins presidential election

And by a landslide: 517, to Sachin Parathalingam’s 304 votes.

Cambridge Union Society charlotte ivers election Sachin Parathalingam student politics Union

After a tight race, Charlotte Ivers is the new president of the Cambridge Union Society, with 61.8% of votes cast.

After running on a platform of wanting to acknowledge the grunt work of the Union’s many volunteer drones and not shying away from controversial speakers, the former Union treasurer has secured victory.

All hail the glorious leader

Ivers ran a strong campaign which featured ringing endorsements from well-known Union hack Jack Lewy, CUSU Women’s officer Charlotte Chorley and former editors of the Tab, Varsity and TCS. In a cunning ploy, she also managed to somehow get all the entry stamps into Lola Lo’s to read ‘Vote for Charlotte’ on Thursday.

Getting comfortable

Ivers is only the 14th female president of the Union out of the 52 that have been in office since 2000. She has promised to use her position to open up exclusive debate dinners to Debate committee regulars, give a platform to marginalised voices and throw a Union Garden Party that will knock our collective socks off.

Responding to the news, Ivers posted on Facebook: “So I won. Thank you so much to everyone who voted for me. I won’t repeat my post below, but thank you so much to everyone again. I would like to congratulate Sachin on his campaign. Sachin has been an excellent speakers officer and has given so much to the Union. I could not have wished for a more worthy opponent.

“This has been the most surreal day of my life in so many ways. I’m not going to drink a lot. Probably in the Union bar. Text me if you want to join. All welcome.”

Other winners in this election include Kate Dunbar as Executive Officer, Matteo Violet-Vianello as Speakers’ Officer, Leyla Gumusdis as Treasurer and Page Nyame-Satterthwaite as Ents Officer.

We hope Charlotte lives up to her promises come Easter Term.