Ash GroverEvery year, The Gateway hosts a panel to discuss the University of Alberta Students’ Union (SU) election. This year’s panellists provided their insights on the candidates running, student politics, and who students should vote for in the 2026 SU election. The Gateway interviewed the panellists on Febraury 28.
Opinions expressed by the panellists do not reflect those of The Gateway.
The Panel
This year’s panel included:
- Angelina Botros: first-year pharmacy doctorate student, former General Faculties Council (GFC) and SU councillor from 2024–25
- Brooklyn Hollinger: The Gateway 2024–25 arts and culture editor, former deputy opinion editor
- Karene Kouadio: fourth-year English and political science student, social science councillor for the Organization for Arts Students and Interdisciplinary Studies (OASIS)
The Candidate
Susan Huseynova, a second-year immunology infection and political science student.
In terms of general impressions, all three panellists agreed that Huseynova’s lack of social media presence left much to be desired.
“I know nothing about this candidate, I haven’t seen her posters on campus [either], so we are just running with what The Gateway has published on them,” Kouadio said.
Botros said that Huseynova’s lack of a platform and social media presence could be due to the fact that she is running uncontested.
“There hasn’t been any form of campaigning that I have been familiar with on campus, as well as there seems to be no Instagram page or any published campaign platform that I could read … which I find to be a little bit inaccessible,” she said.
Hollinger said that this lack of campaigning ties into complacency. “I still think it’s kind of a bare minimum requirement when you’re running in a race like this, even if you are uncontested,” she said.
“The passion that I was able to parse from the Q&A has not been translated to the forum,” Hollinger says
Huseynova’s performances during the forums could have been improved, according to Kouadio. She said that some of Huseynova’s answers to questions asked at the forums need to be elaborated on and expanded with specific examples.
“It just feels like this candidate is not really working within her capacity or what she’s capable of doing [that] the role entails. She’s just aligning herself with words that seem socially pleasing,” she said.
Botros said that Huseynova’s forum performances have been variable depending on the audience that she’s talking to. “She killed it at the Interdepartmental Science Students’ Society (ISSS) forum, simply because there is an ingrained understanding of what’s going on with the science students,” she said.
“However, in other scenarios, there could be a bit more of a miss, simply because either more understanding needs to be made, or more consultation with specific bodies within that faculty and/or student representative association (SRA) needs to be done,” she said.
Hollinger said that she thinks that Huseynova’s Q&A with The Gateway was really well done, but that hasn’t necessarily translated into her forum performance.
“The passion that I was able to parse from the Q&A has not been translated to the forum. Again, maybe this comes back to complacency,” she said.
Kouadio noted that there could be a lack of understanding or collaboration between Huseynova and certain departments or students in regards to her consultations.
“I think the passion was there for [the] ISSS [forum] and, albeit that is her home [faculty, but] it also should have been there for every other forum,” she said.
“I think there should be a little more elaboration on both [ideas] in different aspects,” Botros says
According to Botros, Huseynova “has hit the head of the nail when it comes to Course Materials Access (CMA). It is the most glaring issue that we have, as students, coming up.”
Huseynova also has good ideas in terms of implementing the Zero Textbook Cost (ZTC) Program and different approaches in terms of artificial intelligence (AI), Botros said.
“I think there should be a little more elaboration on both [ideas] in different aspects,” she said.
Hollinger echoed that Huseynova’s platform points need more specificity.
“What she has talked about with academic clarity and the centralized advising system just needs to be a little more concrete and give us a clear idea as to what she wants to see in that way,” she said.
Kouadio also discussed wanting more specific plans in terms of Huseynova’s execution of her platform points, in addition to more collaboration with various faculty associations to ensure that all students are represented.
The VPA role “entails a lot of responsibilities and I fear these responsibilities have not been met or addressed. I am very skeptical as to where this platform will be going,” she said.
Will Huseynova win: three votes for yes
Should Huseynova win: two votes for yes, one vote for no
