By Garrett Raakman

Candidates running for positions within the Toronto Metropolitan Students’ Union (TMSU) in the 2025 fall by-election spoke at an executive candidates forum on Nov. 21.

The forum featured nominees from each slates who delivered brief speeches and answered questions asked by Ghallia Hashem, the TMSU’s chief returning officer (CRO). The questions included what motivated the candidates to campaign, and how they planned to increase transparency within the TMSU.

The forum had very low attendance from the student body and only three out of the six candidates running for president attended. Hashem said that the lack of attendees was due to poor planning.

“It is unfortunate that the room is empty,” said Hashem at the forum. “I think that that might have been a little bit of a planning issue given that it was on a Friday, and definitely that will be looked into for the general election.”

Zain Baig and Kobe Biya—the presidential candidates representing Team Justice and Students Leading Tomorrow, respectively—as well as independent candidate Muhammad Hanan were in attendance. There were also a handful of candidates running for smaller roles such as vice president of education and vice president of equity.

“I believe that the role of the president is to uplift others, empower their ideas, and create an environment where every student can grow both personally and professionally,” said Baig.

Biya said in his speech that leadership should be inclusive. “Leadership, I think, is established, very much through what others see. Especially those that you consider your peers,” he said. “I think that it’s very, very important to not be afraid to be questioned.”

The candidates also addressed some of the recent allegations of corruption within the TMSU as previously reported by The Eyeopener. They also addressed how they intend to rebuild trust between students and the union.

“I think it’s not the right call to change your policies depending on the situation you’re in,” said Hanan. “You’ve gotta think about it more in depth. You do need to care about students, what they really need and make sure that you’re implementing things that help students out.”

When asked about the safeguards meant to help prevent interference in this election, Hashem highlighted the TMSU Election Procedures Code (EPC).
“We’re introducing some really pointed focuses on the EPC as a governing document, and all of the content that has so far been shared in terms of how the elections will be administered is directly from the EPC.” said Hashem.

“We’ve also taken accounts to make sure that individuals can submit complaints—if they believe there’s something going wrong with the election.”

This election comes after the TMSU’s 2025 April general election was nullified after the TMSU’s board of governors concluded that there was illegal interference.

The 2025 Fall TMSU by-election will occur from Nov. 25-27. Originally scheduled from Nov. 24-26, voting was delayed a day by the CRO due to technical errors in ballot casting. According to the CRO in a video posted to TMSU’s Instagram, all ballots casted up to that point will be voided. Polling will open at 10:00 a.m. on Tuesday and will close at 5:00 p.m. on Thursday.