Jonny Cosgrove was elected on the first count to the position of Entertainments Vice-President. The race was one of three uncontested, meaning that Cosgrove’s only opponent was the Re-Open Nominations (RON) option. Cosgrove received the highest mandate of any of the candidates in this year’s elections, beating RON 83 per cent to 17.

Cosgrove told The University Observer that the election had turned out “the way I wanted – I’m in anyways, so happy days.” He described the period preceding the voting, which took place on the 3^rd and 4^th March, was “fun [and] a lot of work.” Cosgrove praised his campaign team, revealing “I was quite sick during the actual main election time, so that [made me think], ‘Thank God I have a really good election team who decided to still show up every day and do everything for me.’”

Asked if he was worried that he may have been defeated by the RON option, Cosgrove revealed he was worried people would not vote for him because of personal reasons. “There’s one thing people just not liking me personally, but its another thing to say that I am not the right person for the job,” Cosgrove commented. “A lot of my thing was to show, through my manifesto, I do know what I’m doing. I have the experience to do it and I think I’ll be good for the job.”

Cosgrove thought that the turnout at this year’s elections, which was over 20 per cent lower than the turnout last year, was a result of the smaller number of candidates seeking the available positions. Disagreeing that student apathy had played a part in the turnout, Cosgrove said that “in the end we had a very high turnout considering there were three uncontested elections.”

Although current Ents officer Mike Pat O’Donoghue remains in office until 1^st July, Cosgrove says he has already started working on his projects for next year, “at the moment we are still in term, and I’m still doing my exams, unfortunately […] I’m doing research into everything and seeing what do I actually need to start before I take office. As soon as we’re all finished exams we can look an awful lot more into it.”

Cosgrove was keen to express his eagerness to get started as part of next year’s team, explaning that “I’m looking forward to working with them all. We’ve all worked together at some stage already so I’m really looking forward to us working as a team.

“A lot of people are saying that I’m losing my summer, but I’m gaining time on next year. I am really looking forward to getting planning on everything.”