The Pro-Aspirasi (pro-government) group once again won control of the Universiti Sains Malaysia (USM) student representative council - for the 12th consecutive year - after the Pro-Mahasiswa (pro-student) group captured only 10 out of the total 46 seats in the campus election this year.

Third force student group ‘Ikatan Mahasiswa’ candidates were all wiped out, according to results which were announced at about 1am by USM’s deputy vice-chancellor Adnan Hussein.

There are a total of 46 seats in USM’s main and branch campuses, of which 10 seats are for campus level and 36 are for faculty level.

Since Pro-Mahasiswa and Ikatan Mahasiswa only contested 14 seats and five seats respectively, Pro-Aspirasi had already been in the lead to control the student representative council since nomination day.

Nevertheless, Pro-Mahasiswa performed better this year at the Minden main campus by winning 10 seats compared to seven seats last year.

Asked on the issue of Ikatan Mahasiwa’s Ng Xiang Yi allegedly being denied from contesting as the Communication School dean refused to sign her candidacy form, Adnan said the approval of the candidacy is up to the dean.

“I have also receive feedback from the concerned students via media.

“Actually in the past, every year they were school deans who rejected candidacies due to certain reasons and criteria, for instance, academic results. I don’t know why it has become a controversy this year,” he said.

He said faculty deans have the prerogative to decide whether or not to sign the candidacy forms.

Asked whether there is any specific guidelines or criteria for the dean to exercise such prerogatives, he said is up to their discretion.

Adnan ( photo ) was also asked why one-third of the total seats were won uncontested, especially the seven seats in the medical campus of Kubang Kerian, which were all won uncontested for the second consecutive year.

Adnan replied that this was normal, and depended how many students from the respective faculty were willing to contest.

Analysis to identify causes of low turn-out

On the low turn-out, Adnan said the university, too, could not confirm the reasons but they will conduct an analysis to identify the factors.

“Maybe the weather in the morning caused the students to decline to come out to vote.

“Some are attending lectures. Although we asked faculties to postpone classes, but still a lot of lecturers proceeded with their lecturing. Maybe this another factor,” he reasoned.

This year the turn-out rate is merely 62.37 percent (7,569 votes), lower than last year’s (63.67 percent).

Compared to the 90.23 percent turn-out rate at the engineering faculty campus, only 56.92 percent of the total students from the main campus had cast their votes.