In what will be the most crowded presidential race in four years and largest overall candidate pool since 2003, four campus political parties are running for Student Association president, two of which are fielding complete tickets.
The election's most notable name is that of Viqar Hussain, the current SA Senate chair and president of Muslim SA, who is running for president under the UB Advocates party.
Challenging UB Advocates, led by Greg Stern, will be the Progress party, the second group with a full ticket of president, vice president, treasurer, and four SUNY SA delegates.
With the deadline for election petitions passing Wednesday, SA officials held their mandatory candidate meeting, allowing all the parties to discuss the rules and regulations of the process. The other two parties running this year are UB Evolved and Have your SAy.
Hussain's running mates include Leslie Meister for vice president, Andrew DeShong for treasurer, and SA delegate hopefuls Eliot Sherman, Bill Miller, Melody Mercedes, and Christopher Mendoza.
According to Hussain, some of the party's biggest objectives are extending Capen Library hours, improving the quality of life on South Campus, and increasing fund allocation for SA clubs.
"(Our goal is) basically improving the student life on campus," he said. "We're going to concentrate and go to the basics. Academics is going to be priority."
The Progress Party, with Stern for president, is composed of campaign manager Greg Rhoads, Marquis Whitmore for vice president, Peter Grollitsch for treasurer and Ericka Luddy, Rob Mercurio, Adam Ruszkowski, and Ashonte Stills running for SA delegate positions.
The party said they are primarily community oriented.
"Right now we're looking at building contact with students," Rhoads said. "E-boards in the past have been very nonchalant about contacting students."
The Have Your SAy party has just two members: presidential candidate Ryan Yaeger and vice presidential candidate Matt Rubinstein.
Both candidates are commuters and discussed the existing parking hazards on campus, saying they also want to improve the relationship between SA and students with an emphasis on transparency.
"I want to see better communication between SA and the students they represent," Yaeger said. "Through knowing what the student body wants, the SA can better provide the events, services, and organizations they want to see. We're trying to be as not corrupt as possible."
The UB Evolved party includes presidential candidate Ilia Nossov who is running with Kevin Simon for vice president, Crystal Jones for treasurer, and Ton Tran as their lone SA delegate.
UB Evolved said they would like to see continued progress on the North Campus health center without diminishing Michael Hall, extended library hours in Capen so students can study whenever they wish, and continuing to bring big names to SA Fests as well as more comedy performers.
"We believe it's very important to extend health care to students on both campuses," Nossov said. "We want to build a very big and successful corporate sponsorship department."
According to Nossov, the corporate sponsorship department would either negate the admission cost of events entirely or at the very least, bring the cost down making the events more accessible to everyone.
The SA campaigning process officially begins at 7:30 a.m. next Sunday, allowing the candidates to handout flyers, post signs and hang banners on campus. The elections run from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m., Tuesday March 28 through Thursday March 30.
