Student fails in poll after ‘Zionists’ claim

A STUDENT who apologised to the Jewish community for claiming “leading Zionists” had tried to swing a university election has failed to win the poll.

Rayhan Uddin had been running for the post of general secretary of the London School of Economics student union.

But neither he nor rival candidate Harry Maxwell received the required percentageof votes,andvotingwillnow be re-run. In last week’s poll, Mr Uddin received 992 votes, less than the option to “re-open the nominations”(RON) which 1,038 students supported.

When Mr Maxwell’s votes were redistributed, RON beat Mr Uddin by 125.

The re-selection process ended yesterday. Voting is expected to take place next week with a result due to be announced on March 24.

Mr Uddin had apologised after he lobbied another candidate — Samiha Begum — to drop out of the race.

He claimed “leading Zionists” had attempted to “win back LSE and make it right wing and Zio again”.

Mr Uddin said he was “deeply sorry to all those who I have angered or offended” after his message to Ms Begum was leaked on Facebook.

In his explanation Mr Uddin wrote: “I would like to take this opportunity to apologise unreservedly to the Jewish community.

“As somebody who stands in a proud tradition of anti-racism it is utterly repugnant to me to think that I may have unwittingly appeared to endorse in any way the foul ideology of antisemitism, I am deeply sorry.”