With the student union elections underway, the Students First campaign is being targeted with allegations of wrongdoing. Krisna Saravanamuttu denied the claims put forward by an executive member of an anonymous student club that Saravanamuttu had threatened to reduce the club’s funding if the club did not endorse his campaign.
The current president of the York Federation of Students (YFS) responded that he does not even have the power to do so.
The club member said he wished to remain anonymous because of what he sees as the importance of a good relationship between his club and the YFS.
Saravanamuttu said he thinks that if the allegations had any credibility, the club executive would have come out publicly.
The club’s executive member noted that his club wanted to remain neutraland endorse neither the Students First nor the New York slates and this, he said, angered Saravanamuttu.
“Krisna said that [remaining neutral] is a spit in his face and that all the funding is ultimately going to pass by him,” he said.
Saravanamuttu called these claims “categorically false,” adding that the YFS president does not even have the power to determine club funding.
“[The funding] is determined by a clubs committee that is comprised of the YFS president, vice-president of operations, members who were elected by the clubs and two elected members of the YFS Board of Directors,” he said.
Despite the fact that new management took over the clinic on March 1, York administration will not meet with them until the end of the month.
For the second straight week, university o cials are refusing to comment on any of the changes that took e ect at the campus medical clinic a er new management took over on March 1.
The office of York president Mamdouh Shoukri, who is still away on sick leave, declined to comment on the issue until he returns to his desk. Rob Ti n, the vicepresident of students, also declined
to comment until he meets with thenew management.
According to Shaffiq Bhanji, the clinic’s new director, the time and place of that meeting has yet to be set and will likely not be until the end of March.
The two parties have only met once and, according to Bhanji, that meeting was mostly to map out the business logistics of the management
