Kieran McNulty has been elected President of Trinity College Dublin Students’ Union on the second count with 49.8%.
His opponents in the race, Stephen Carty and Daniel O’Brien, received 27.8 per cent and 18.2 per cent of first-preference votes respectively.
McNulty won on the second count without reaching the quota – just eight votes short.
On Tuesday, The University Times, in three-day in-person poll of 1,007 students, put McNulty as set to take 50.9 per cent of first-preference votes.
McNulty, who is currently Citizenship Officer for TCDSU, ran on a platform of empowerment, accommodation, equality and efficient services. During hustings events throughout the week, he was very vocal about repealing the eighth amendment, setting up a lobby group and calling a referendum to build a student centre.
The gap between candidates was much greater than last year’s race, where it went to a second count, with Lynn Ruane eventually defeating Conor O’Meara by 2335 votes to 1939.
The campaign saw very little difference between the candidates over the major issues facing students. One clash that did recur between candidates, however, was over the balance the union should strike between national issues and internal student problems.
McNulty pushed the importance of lobbying the government after the election, especially over the introduction of a third-level loan scheme. Speaking at The University Times and An Cumann Gaelach hustings on February 9th, McNulty said: “We need to fight. We need to rally. We need to send mass letters, mass emails to Senators and TDs.”
