By Edward Lander

Last week’s Toronto Metropolitan Students’ Union (TMSU) faculty director by-election saw low turnout and low participation, with many candidates claiming their seats with less than 10 votes.

The election sought to fill seven board seats left vacant after the Spring 2026 General Election. However, only four candidates ultimately ran and all were unopposed. The election spanned Oct. 26 to 28 and voting took place both online and in-person.

Faculty directors are members of the union’s board of directors who represent students in their respective faculties.

Among the winners was second-year computer science student Hamza Chaudhry, who acclaimed the Faculty of Science director seat. He said the low turnout may stem from a lack of awareness of student politics and trust in the TMSU.

“When students don’t trust an institution, they don’t take part in it,” he said in an interview with The Eyeopener. “When they don’t take part in it, it means that institution can’t bring about meaningful change.”

Chaudry said he plans to use his position to rebuild trust between students and the TMSU, hopefully encouraging more students to vote or run in future elections.
“To be blunt, like eight votes, 10 votes, 15 votes—this shouldn’t be enough to put anyone on a board just because no one else ran. There should be many people running,” he said.

Chaudry said as a board member he’d like to make more information about board decisions available online and increase consultation with students through a student-wide survey.

“I want to remove the dichotomy between students and the TMSU, where the union is something that happens to them, not something that they’re part of, because that’s the way I felt before I ran in these elections,” he said.

Third-year juris doctor candidate Ian Lin acclaimed the Lincoln Alexander School of Law Director seat. He ran in a slate alongside Anjalique Raghunauth, who won the faculty’s second seat.

Lin is vice-president of the Lincoln Alexander Law Students’ Society (LALSS) and Raghunauth is president.

This by-election was the first where students who are signing officers for student groups or societies were permitted to run. In an emailed statement, the TMSU told The Eye this change was proposed at the union’s last board meeting and adopted into the Campus Groups Code of Conduct.

In Lin’s candidate bio, he urged students—specifically law students—to participate in the elections.

Lin won his seat with eight votes. But he said within LALSS’ own elections, voter turnout is much higher, with as many as half of the faculty’s students participating.
“We have really great turnout in our internal elections, it’s not like [students] don’t vote, they do vote. I think it’s just a battle of awareness,” he said.

Lin said he hopes to increase ties between law students and the rest of the university in his role. “We are not a silo, we are part of the larger community,” he said. “I know not all law students feel that way, some of them just want to stay within law, but to me TMU was part of my identity.”

Second-year creative industries student Alonzo Reyes was elected Creative School director with 13 votes. He said the low voter turnout was likely associated with the race being a by-election, rather than a general election.

Reyes said he’s eager to serve on the board, and would like to increase connections between Creative School students and the union.

“It seems like The Creative School itself is an underrepresented group within the union,” he said. “If I can get it more ingrained in and work with the student body to guide the TMSU into a direction that helps everybody and creates a win-win, [that] would be something I want to work towards.”

In their statement, TMSU said the seats that were not filled in the by-election will continue to be held by interim directors who were appointed at the Oct. 1 board meeting. They will hold the position until the board term ends on April 30, 2027.