Sebastian Rossi has been ejected from the Stand Apart ticket as a general representative candidate hours after it launched. He allegedly sought to break the ticket apart to launch a new ticket and a bid for ANUSA vice-president, after issuing an ultimatum to Stand Apart.
In a screenshot seen by Woroni, Rossi suggests to fellow Stand Apart candidates he could leave the ticket to form his own and they could join him. Rossi emphasises in these messages that it is only a possibility he could leave.
But the ticket convenor, Ashish Nagesh, told Woroni on Monday night that Rossi wanted to run for vice-president and this was the cause of the potential split. Stand Apart is not fielding executive candidates.
Rossi, who is the president of the Men’s Network, alleged that Nagesh ‘attempted to bribe me’ not to run for vice-president and that he sought to ‘seem like I was going along with it’ but ‘no money was exchanged.’
Nagesh said that Rossi had alleged he had tried to bribe Rossi and ‘convince him not to run.’ Nagesh denied offering Rossi money not to run as vice-president.
‘All I said was, that I’d support the Men’s Network and help him out with fundraising as a team, on a ticket,’ Nagesh said.
Rossi said that he was ‘just looking at options’ in the messages seen by Woroni and wanted to ‘save some people from the fallout’ of his allegations against the ticket.
‘[I] was trying to see if I had supporters in the contingency of a split,’ he said.
Rossi told Woroni that he gave an ‘ultimatum’ to the ticket, saying that either he or Nagesh should be ejected.
Nagesh said that the ultimatum was ‘that I was off the ticket or he [Rossi] splits.’
‘The ticket backs me,’ Nagesh, who is the treasurer of the ANU Liberal Club, said late on Monday night. ‘It shall go on ahead and we are all loyal to the policy.’
Stand Apart launched on Monday afternoon on a platform opposed to the National Union of Students, of increased international student representation, and reform to how departments were represented by general representatives, along with funding for mental health and sexual assault services.
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