Nyawanda, Dzenga win first contested presidential election in 5 years

Nyawanda, Dzenga win first contested presidential election in 5 years

On April 13, sophomore Igen Nyawanda and freshman Regis Dzenga defeated juniors Ellie Pulse and Mariam Alinizi in the Augustana Student Association’s (ASA) first contested presidential election in five years. 

Over the course of four days, 574 students voted in the elections, only two of which were contested: the presidential and vice presidential race, and the secretary race. 

Nyawanda and Dzenga won the presidential election with 52.1% of the vote; Pulse and Alinizi received 46.3%, and 1.6% of voters abstained.

“I just want to say thank you to the Augustana community for trusting us and giving us the responsibility,” Nyawanda, who is also the incumbent ASA president, said.

In the secretary race, junior Emily Huggins won over sophomore Lubula Jordi Nsenga. Huggins took 51.2% of the vote, and Nsenga received 29.6%. 19.2% of voters abstained.

All 15 senators were elected by default, and three senator seats — two for fourth-year senators and one for a third-year senator — were unfilled by election. Nyawanda said that ASA hopes to fill these seats during their final senate meeting this spring. Should seats remain open after that, the senate will appoint the rest at their first meeting in the fall. 

The recent elections saw a voter turnout that more than doubled last year’s numbers: a 125% increase from 255 votes in 2025 to 574 in 2026. Prior to this year, voting numbers had been steadily declining since 2020, decreasing by 69.2% in five years.

Senior and current ASA treasurer Ian Kelly, who is also part of the Election Commission, attributed the higher turnout to the competitive presidential race. He said that he believes this increase marks room for more engagement going forward.

“I think that having student engagement in ASA comes from publicity through the Mirror, a senate which is engaged with other organizations on campus and having a temperament of tolerance within the senate,” Kelly said. “These are certainly things where ASA could do better, and I hope we made steps in the right direction this year.”

Both presidential election platforms focused largely on familiar concerns regarding community, transparency and transportation. Nyawanda and Dzenga campaigned on a three-point platform outlined on their Instagram page titled ‘Build. Simplify. Attitude.’

‘Build’ seeks to improve the use of space and resources on campus, such as Ole Advantage and transportation options like Lyft, SAM On Demand and Uni Go. Also included in this element of the plan are improvements to student spaces like Student Street — the hallway on the second-floor of the Morrison Commons — and the Back Alley with the goal of making them feel more welcoming.

Another of Nyawanda and Dzenga’s ideas for “building” at Augustana is to introduce an “Augustana festival,” a large-scale entertainment event that all of the student organizations on campus contribute to. 

“We have a great potential on campus and all these small pockets that if we can get a cross-coordinated effort, you can produce something [at] Augie that nobody will want to miss,” Dzenga said. 

The second element of the plan, ‘Simplify,’ aims to refine the processes by which student organizations interact with ASA. According to Dzenga, the new administration intends to examine what progress has been made to help student organizations through making funding requests, the ultimate goal being to further streamline the system.

The last element of the winning campaign was ‘Attitude.’

“It’s [about the] attitude of the senate but also being good stewards and going back to the people on campus who we represent,” Nyawanda said. “We really want to push that people are talking to their constituents before they ultimately make decisions so everyone is informed across the process.”

Following the conclusion of the competitive presidential race, Pulse and Alinizi submitted a complaint to ASA’s Election Commission in which they raised questions about conduct during campaigns. 

The complaint outlined rules about where candidates can table and how general ASA paraphernalia is used during campaigns that the pair felt had been violated. However, these are not clearly outlined in ASA’s Election Code; instead, generally accepted standards have been passed around verbally or via email between commission members and candidates, which can lead to gaps in communication.

“This is something that we've come to find out is that the election code is pretty outdated, and I feel like that needs to be updated,” Alinizi said.

The code, which has not been revised since February 2024, still makes references to physical voting locations on campus. It does not make any provisions about the use of social media — where much of the candidates’ campaigning now take place — or of general ASA imagery, such as logos, by candidates during their campaigns.

“We were told that we needed to keep our campaign separate from ASA,” Alinizi said. “Obviously people knew we were running for ASA, but we couldn’t use ASA-official stuff to promote our [campaign], if that makes sense. Especially given Ellie’s role as the Human Public Relations [Committee] Chair, we had to make that very clear that we were running separate.”

The commission, led by Kelly and Dean of Students Beth Elam, ruled that the complaint did not necessitate further action.

Despite their defeat, Pulse and Alinizi emphasized their intention to stay closely involved with ASA.

“It's not over for us,” Pulse said. “And we're gonna make sure that, you know, we can still make a change and make an impact for Augustana.”

As they prepare to take office this fall, Nyawanda and Dzenga expressed confidence in their combination of experience and youth, saying that they believe the Augustana community should have high expectations for what they will accomplish.

“Continue to hold us accountable, but I think we’re excited for the things we can do,” Nyawanda said.