Farewell then, Malia Bouattia. The only president of the National Union of Students to earn herself a condemnation from the Home Affairs Committee, Bouattia has been defeated in her bid to win re-election at the NUS conference in Brighton. Her time in charge of the NUS was ended by Shakira Martin, the Union’s vice-president for further education, who received 402 votes to Bouattia’s 272. Malia’s presidency was dogged by scandal. And as deluded as the NUS is, even it couldn’t continue to tolerate a leader who called Birmingham University a ‘Zionist outpost’ and once refused to back a motion condemning Isis, because she thought doing so would justify Islamophobia.
Martin was effectively the NUS top-tier’s ‘Not Malia’ candidate. The stakes in this election were undoubtedly high: one NUS bigwig even tweeted that if Martin’s bid failed, there ‘may not be an NUS next year’. In her acceptance speech, Martin paid lip service to students’ dissatisfaction:
‘The NUS now is more interested in infighting and factions than fighting for you…the change starts now and here.’
So is this really all change for the NUS? Martin is certainly doing her best to talk the talk that she is prepared to shake things up.
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