Cardiff SU President compares her successor to Donald Trump

Jackie Yip will take over by the end of the academic year

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Current VP Education Jackie Yip was announced as the next President of Cardiff University Students' Union on Saturday. However, the incumbent President Fadhila Al Dhahouri, who supported Amr Alwishah in the election, has reacted badly to the results.

She posted on Facebook that she now knows "what Obama felt when Trump was elected", comments widely assumed to be a reference Jackie's win.

After backlash, Fadhila edited the post to remove the first sentence, and denied a comparison has been made. The post was then subsequently deleted.

In a later post, Fadhila claimed to "completely accept the election results". However, in a post on Friday before polls closed she had stated that voters should choose carefully as they had a choice between "Trump or Mandela, or anything in between".

Fadilah has spoken to The Cardiff Tab regarding her recent comments and has said: "The post on my private Facebook account caused confusion and was misconstrued to be related to SU elections results by the supporters of the winner.

"Once that happened, I explained in the comments it was not the case. However, the comments of confusion were still ongoing. So, I decided to delete the post and shared my post from the official SU President account congratulating the newly elected team to avoid any more confusion.

"Originally, I followed up from a post about Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez's speech I shared earlier in the week.

"I wanted to make the point that Trump's elections sparked the birth of authentic leaders and justice fighters, and that hope is always there regardless of how gloomy the situation looks."

The newly elected Sabbatical Officers, including next President Jackie Yip (top left)

One candidate also said that they had found this years election week to have "a very different atmosphere to other years and felt very negative due to the actions of some candidates."

Jackie said that "it was a rollercoaster of week", with "ups and downs, and it took a huge emotional and physical toll", but declined to comment further.

Jackie Yip will take over by the end of the academic year, and has promised more investment in mental health, specific LGBT+ support, free tampons and STI testing kits in the SU and cheaper catering across campus. In her acceptance speech she also promised to "heal the wounds" that have been opened by an unusually bitter election week and "fix the team", referring to the current Sabbatical Officers who will need to continue to work together for the rest of the year.