AUSA 2026 Presidential Election Debate
AUSA Election Debates Recap: Who is your next President?

Considering the AUSA election is underway, it's understandable that everyone wants the majority vote to get the role. But who should you actually vote for? We decided to stop by the Presidential Candidates' Debate in order to find out.
Overview
Main policies:
- Elson: Prioritising student voices and ensuring they are heard.
- Morteza: Still at an early planning stage, no specific policies announced yet.
- Nimish: Focus on study spaces and postgraduate employment.
- Kalana: Emphasis on organising large student events.
Political affiliations:
- None: Morteza, Nimish, Kalana
- Green Party (volunteer only): Elson
Willingness to advocate views that differ from their own:
- Yes: Elson, Nimish, Kalana
- Possibly: Morteza
Support for Craccum (funding/independence):
- Yes: Elson, Morteza
- Possibly: Nimish (indicated in conversation)
On the question of a potential student boycott of Israel (noting 53% support among Otago students):
- Elson: Would support
- Kalana: Would support if students requested it
- Nimish: Expressed that 53% is relatively low
- Morteza: Would not support, describing Israel as the only democracy in the region
Here's a breakdown of each Presidential Candidate
Elson Tan
Elson Tan is a second-year compsci student. He claims to have volunteered at Uniguides, AUSA, and a charity on K Road. His presidential promise is that he is “not running for himself, or for glory and fame. Instead, I run for YOU!” What this means, we will let you decide for yourself after reading the rest of this section.
Elson’s campaign focuses on the statement that students needs are essential - students’ academic well-being, their furnishing with the things they need to learn (UBIQ), their right to not get harassed by religious groups, and ultimately, restoring trust in AUSA. When confronted with the 10% turnout for last year’s AUSA election, he stated that it was not just not enough, but also “disappointing”, and this is likely because AUSA has kept too many secrets - while the President’s Corner is good, two weeks is still, in his mind, a lot of time to hide things. He plans to accelerate that to a weekly schedule, open a booking page to privately consult with him, as well as hold press conferences monthly in front of the AUSA building, even in torrential rain. He promises this because he believes that the President’s role is to represent AUSA and take responsibility for everything that they do.
Elson promises to begin his term by getting straight to work - throwing money at UBIQ and Craccum (yay!), going to the Mayor about AT, etc. His volunteer work within the Green Party has earned him many connections there, mainly Chloe Swarbrick herself, who he expects to accompany him to the Mayor or even to Parliament, as she is of a similar opinion. He claims that there are only a few problem groups and that he will cooperate with Student Services to investigate them. Additionally, he promises to reverse Craccum’s budget cuts and add another $1000 to the budget, regardless of whether Craccum separates or not.
In conclusion, Elson makes big promises, but the main question must be addressed: can he deliver on them?
Dr. Morteza Sharifi
Dr Morteza Sharifi’s opening statement could not be captured, as unlike Elson, he tends to speak quietly. However, based on his title, he holds a PhD, and he has fought the University in the High Court to attain it. An incredible feat, born from unfortunate circumstances.
Morteza campaigns to represent the students, but with only 10% voter turnout, AUSA, in his mind, scarcely represents the voters, and seriously brings AUSA’s legitimacy into question. He plans to remedy this by bringing AUSA to the students - directing the heads of faculty to make AUSA engagement compulsory.
Morteza will not begin his term by taking any drastic action - he believes in the big picture, of getting a good grasp of what is happening before he will act. This is why, when asked what the first 100 days of him being president would look like, he stated that he would initiate a questionnaire to see what the student body wants. However, this also means that there is no solid, concrete plan for what he will do as president: something that everyone else has to some extent. Whether this is good foresight or bad planning is up to you.
Nimish Milan Singh
Nimish is a fourth-year Bachelor of Science student studying physics, statistics, and Chinese, responsible for Tongan Language Week. His goal is simple: to run for the student voice.
Nimish’s election campaign mostly runs on careers and security for the students in the future, and the skills needed for the admittedly uncertain future we are about to head into. But another big part of his pitch is the implementation of overflow study spaces. When the candidates were asked if they could only implement one policy and what policy that would be, he answered overflow study spaces. He clarified that while all other issues are equally important and that he will be advocating for them as president, this problem is the easiest one he can solve and won’t need a lot of resources allocated towards it. In fact, this is part of his basis as president: finding problems that can actually be fixed in a one-year time period.
But there’s also his pitch on careers and security for students. Beyond career workshops and more job advertisements around the university, his other plan for doing this is a strong AI policy: essentially, educating students on how to use AI for the future for their jobs. In order to be able to pull this off, he’s going to need a strong relationship with faculty members and student clubs. This is actually more focused towards international students rather than domestic students, and his background has allowed him to meaningfully interact with them to see what they actually want. It’s clear he’s been focused on the international students if Tongan Language Week is anything to go by.
Another interesting tidbit we heard is that while other candidates mentioned they would reverse the Craccum budget cuts (with Elson adding in an additional thousand), Nimish leaned more towards restructuring Craccum to fit with these new budget cuts.
Kalana Priamanage
Kalana is the current VP of Engagement in AUSA, responsible for the many big events held around the university. And it definitely feels like he plans on doing even more of those. The plan is to engage the disengaged through those big events, with plans for Grafton, too.
Another thing he says he’s working on is the Clubs Broadcast Channel, which will make it easier to gain information on clubs. In fact, it’s most likely the app he said he was working on in his short snippet in the print edition of Craccum.
However, he also mentioned that the executive discretionary fund won’t be undergoing any changes. When asked about this regarding how executives could misuse those funds and the danger behind it, he relies on democracy to smooth things out. He states that each exec has one vote and that it’s highly unlikely that the executive board is extremist, all focusing on one side. Whether this is hypocrisy or not, based on the allegations brought against him and his friend group in recent times, is up to you.
Now, as VP of Engagement, Shadows seems to fall under his territory. As it turns out, Shadows isn’t doing all too well and could be at risk of closing down. So he brought in bands to perform and got people in during off-peak hours, 4-6 pm. But what about Craccum? This was a question brought up by others. Unlike others, while Kalana agrees that they are free to be independent, it’s important to maintain that bond between them and AUSA due to stuff like funding.
But there is also his focus on transport: there’s currently a petition to make public transport free for students, and he has plans to get AUT involved too. There are currently 3000 signatures, but the moderators brought up the fact that there are 43000 students in UoA alone; in fact, all the candidates seemed eager to bring that up. This is all to be expected from someone voted as the vice president of engagement in AUSA.
Vote before this Friday, 29th August, to make your voice heard:
Vote here: https://ausa.org.nz/elections/voting/

Craccum would like to humbly thank the Arts and Education Student Association (AESA) for their commitment to platforming all student campaigns in this year's AUSA elections.
Disclaimer: The views and opinions expressed in Craccum are those of individual contributors and interviewees and do not necessarily reflect those of the editorial team or the publication as a whole. While we aim to ensure accuracy and fairness, Craccum cannot guarantee the complete reliability of all information presented and assumes no liability for errors or omissions.