News brief: KSA releases preliminary candidate list for 2025 general election
File art by Chelsea Lai.
The Kwantlen Student Association released a preliminary candidate list for the 2025 general elections. Voting will take place on March 10 and 11, with polling stations open from 10:00 am to 6:30 pm both days.
Polling will take place on Kwantlen Polytechnic University’s Grassroots Cafe and Lounge on the Surrey campus, the meeting room near enrollment services (West 1030) at KPU Langley, the student lounge adjacent to the KSA office (Room 1202) at KPU Cloverdale, Room 508 at KPU Civic Plaza, and the Melville Centre for Dialogue (Room 2550) at the Richmond campus.
Organizing recreational events and cultural festivals, reducing textbook costs, introducing networking and career opportunities, raising bursaries and scholarships, resolving parking space issues, and creating a vibrant and diverse community are among some of the issues candidates are running on this year.
Other campaign plans include hosting more sports events for the student body, implementing on-campus training for trades programs, and expanding the grocery support program. The full list of candidate statements and photos can be found on the KSA’s website.
Of the 25 seats KPU students can run for, based on the preliminary candidates list, there are no students running for the academic and career advancement representative, design representative, trades and technology representative, and Indigenous students representative positions.
There are 40 students running in this year’s elections, a decrease from last year’s 66 candidates.
Of the five campus representative positions, one candidate — Shawinderdeep Singh — is running for Civic Plaza campus representative and three candidates — Barbara Keith, Jobanpreet Singh, and Prerna Sharma — are running for Cloverdale campus representative.
Hardik Kansal, Akashdeep Singh, and Utkarsh Mundi are running for Richmond campus representative, while Prabjot Singh Rana is running for Surrey campus representative and Prabhnoor Singh for Langley campus representative.
The candidates for constituency representatives, which there are six seats available for, include current KSA Vice-President External Affairs Paramvir Singh for international students representative, as well as current KSA Vice-President University Affairs Abhijeet Singh, Sheena Dela Torre, and Ashutosh Dhingra for mature students representative. An individual named James is running for queer students representative, and Gaganjeet Singh and current KSA Faculty of Business Representative Harpal Singh are contesting for students of colour representative.
Two students — Gaganjot Sidhu and current KSA Faculty of Science and Horticulture Representative Bhoomika Seera — are contesting for the students with disabilities representative position. The women’s representative position also has two candidates: Manmeet Kaur and Pawanpreet Kaur.
For the 11 faculty representative positions, six candidates — Jagjivan Sran, Harjot Singh, Sameer Malik, Gurparv Singh, Amanpreet Singh, and current KSA Faculty of Arts Representative Jasmine Kaur Kochhar — are running for the three available arts representative positions.
Gurdit Singh, Harkamal Singh, Sominpal Singhpal Brar, KSA Associate President Ishant Goyal, Aditya Kapoor, Tejas Pathania, Naimish Kumar, Deepika, Mohit Kumar, and Tanu are contesting for the five available business representative positions.
Two positions are available for the science and horticulture representative, which Anmol Bansal, Prabhleen Kaur, and Rohit Uppal are all contesting for. Harmanjot Grewal is running for the one available health representative position.
The preliminary candidate list released on the KSA’s website is still pending verification and is subject to change. The official candidate list, which was to be published this week, was not available on the student association’s website at the time of publication.
The campaigning period for contesting candidates will end on March 11 at 6:30 pm.
After the KSA council approved changes to the association’s election regulations last year, candidates risk disqualification if they participate in interviews with the media, which includes The Runner.
For election-related inquiries, students can email KSA Chief Returning Officer Gurinder Singh Gaddu at elections@kusa.ca. For election updates, visit kusa.ca/elections/.
