Candidate For Union Presidency Disqualified

Gabriel Latner, one of the candidates running for the Union Presidency, has been disqualified from the race.

The decision was made this morning after Latner gave an interview to Varsity about his election campaign.

Latner was already on his final warning after the Returning Officers, Alex Helliwell and Sophie Hollows, ruled that by giving quotes to The Tab he was in breach of the Union’s Constitution.

As punishment for this, Latner was to have 20% of the votes cast for him docked.

The Union’s electoral guidelines state that candidates are not able to “distribute, display or circulate any written or printed material, other than long manifestos as reproduced by the Returning Officers, which is intended to promote or hinder the candidature of any member”.

The interview was the final straw for the Returning Officers.

In a letter to Latner, the officers said the decision was: “due to the fact that this is second time that Mr. Latner had been found guilty of such an offence”

“In this case, the article was much more focused on the Candidate’s own quotes, the Returning Officers have resolved to disqualify Mr. Latner from the current election”.

A source close to him said that the decision only punishes those who wanted to vote for him by “censuring an election candidate for trying to inform people about the issues.”

His name is, however, still on the Union’s ballot papers as the decision was made after the ballot papers had already been printed and circulated online.

The Union announced that any second preference votes for Latner will be immediately redistributed.