Victor the Victorious

At approximately 7:45 p.m. on Wednesday, Election Rules Commission Deputy Ahmad Ragab announced that Maxon Victor and Sameer Ahmed would be next year’s student body president and vice president.

The announcement was made in the Tampa Room of the Phyllis P. Marshall Center in front of about 75 students.

Current student body Vice President Andrew Aubery and running mate Jessica Asuncion received 1,625 votes and the Victor/Ahmed ticket received 2,473.

A roar came from the crowd before Ragab could finish announcing Victor’s vote total.

“T-P-C, The People’s Campaign all the way,” Victor said just after the announcement.

“I’m waiting to come back to the ground now. It hasn’t settled in yet,” was all Ahmed could say at first. “I want to thank the student body for voting,” he added.

“We plan to bust our butts, day in and day out,” Victor said. “We’re going to devote a year to the students.”

Both Victor and Ahmed repeatedly thanked their supporters.

“I thank everyone,” Victor said.

He then listed a long roll call of people to thank, including family members, members of Student Government and friends.

They also went out of their way to thank their campaign staff and the Greek community.

“I cannot thank them (members of the campaign staff) enough,” Ahmed said. “It was not an army of two that took on this campus, it was all 20 of them.”

“(We want to thank) everybody in the Greek system,” Victor said.

“We are so happy to have their (the Greek community) support,” Ahmed said. “They are going to be so instrumental next year.”

Students who campaigned for Victor were just as excited.

“Those nights of being up until two in the morning chalking have paid off,” said freshman Julie Baumann.

“We’ve been in overdrive this last week,” sophomore Chirag Vijapura said. “It feels good.”

Aubery said that even after the setback of the loss, he still plans to work toward his platform goals.

“I always promised that I would finish my platform and I will finish my platform,” Aubery said. “Everything that I put on there is something that can be achieved regardless if I have a position or not.”

Aubery added that he had no intentions of running next year, but he did say his long-term goals do include eventually joining the Florida state Legislature in Tallahassee.

Before the results were announced, current student body President Bijal Chhadva, who lost once before running again and winning the presidency, had some words of advice for the losing candidate.

“See what you can gain from it,” Chhadva said. “You learn more from when you fail than when you succeed.”

He added that neither candidate should consider the election a “failure” and congratulated both tickets on all of their hard work.

There was also a runoff for a senate seat in the College of Arts and Sciences between James Culp and Suhail Rifaie. Culp won the seat, with 1,545 votes to Rifaie’s 1,092 votes.

Next year’s SG will be inaugurated April 18 in Traditions Hall.