Members of the SGA cabinet held up copies of The Cougar during the protest. | Haya Panjwani/The Cougar
Members of the Student Government Association organized the “Recognize the Recall” protest on Wednesday, with a megaphone and a small crowd.
The protest in front of Butler Plaza featured members of the SGA cabinet. This included Vice President Maryam Alghafir and Speaker of the Senate David Paul Hilton among others, asking the SGA Supreme Court to overturn the decision to nullify the recall.
During the special election, students voted in favor of recalling President Arsalan Darbin. The Supreme Court nulled the decision, citing the influence of campaigning from both parties had swayed the direction in favor of the recall.
“To have a recall election code that does not allow campaigning is obnoxious,” Alghafir said. “There is not a single election in history where people do not campaign. The whole point of an election is to campaign and to know what you’re voting for. If no one’s allowed to campaign, then how are students supposed to know what’s happening?”
Alghafir was one of the most vocal at the protest, saying she is now effectively taking on the bulk of SGA’s responsibilities while President Darbin is suspended until December.
“When I signed up to be vice president, I didn’t think that I’d be acting president, acting speaker and vice president all at the same time,” Alghafir said.
Since SGA does not have enough people to hold meetings, there will be no SGA meetings until next semester.
”It was beyond me that we would be suspending basically everyone in this organization and that I would have to run an entire organization without the support of the very people who are elected to be in those positions,” Alghafir said. “It’s also disappointing that despite the student body voting in (the) majority in favor to remove the president, that the President is still here.”
Editors note: The Cougar does not endorse or rebuke the SGA protest, despite the printed products being displayed in the photo or the recall protest.
