} The Michigan Daily - michigandaily.com
NEWS BRIEFS
CARACAS, Venezuela
Measure's defeat
means Chavez can't
serve indefinitely
President Hugo Chavez suffered
a stunning defeat early today in a
referendum that would have let
him run for re-election indefinitely
and impose a socialist system in
this major U.S. oil provider.
Voters defeated the sweeping
measures yesterday by a vote of 51
percent to 49 percent, said Tibisay
Lucena, chief of the National Elec-
toral Council, with voter turnout at
just 56 percent.
She said that with 88 percent of
the votes counted, the trend was
irreversible.
Opposition supporters shouted
with joy as Lucena announced the
results on national television early
Monday, their first victory against
Chavez after nine years of electoral
defeats.
MOSCOW
Putin's party coasts
to election victory
Vladimir Putin's party won a
crushing victory in parliamentary
elections yesterday, paving the
way for the authoritarian leader
to remain in control even after he
steps down as president.A
The vote followed atense Kremlin
campaign that relied on a combina- o
tion of persuasion and intimidation
to ensure victory for the United Rus-
sia party and for Putin, who has used
a flood of oil revenues to move his
country into a more assertive posi- r
tion on the global stage.
"The vote affirmed the main
idea: that Vladimir Putin is the
national leader, that the people sup-
port his course, and this course will
continue," party leader and parlia-
ment speaker Boris Gryzlov said
after exit polls were announced.
Severaloppositionleaders accused
the Kremlin of rigging the vote, and
the Bush administration called fora
probe into votingirregularities.
DETROIT
Winter storm kills
11 across region
Rain fell over much of the Mid-
west yesterday, one day after a pre-
winter Midwestern snow and ice
storm swept through the region,
slickening roads and causing crash-
es that killed at least 11 people from
Colorado to Indiana.
Four deaths in Michigan were
blamed on weather conditions.
In suburban Detroit, a 54-year-
old man driving with his 57-year-
old wife spun out of control and
crashed about 6:40 p.m. Saturday.
"The truck left the roadway,
struck a guardrail and rolled on
its side in the median," Sterling
Heights police Lt. Alan A. Byrd said
Sunday in a news release. "Both
husband and wife had to be extri-
cated from the vehicle.... Both were
dead at the scene."
BALI, Indonesia
U.N. kicks off global
warming conference
Delegates and scientists from
around the world opened the big-
gest-ever climate change confer-
ence today, urging rapid progress
in building a new international pact
by 2009 to combat global warming
- or risk economic and environ-
mental disaster.
Some 10,000 conferees, activ-
ists and journalists from nearly 190
countries gathered on the resort
island of Bali for two weeks of U.N.-
led talks that follow a series of sci-
entific reports this year concluding
that the world has the technology
to slow global warming, but must
act immediately.
The Bali meeting will be the
first major climate change confer-
ence since former Vice President
Al Gore - due to arrive next week
- and a U.N. scientific council won
the Nobel Peace Prize in October
for their environmental work, fuel-
ing the growing sense of urgency
as ice-caps melt, oceans rise and
extreme weather increases.
- Compiled from
Daily wire reports
1
3,882
Number of American service mem-
bers who have died in the war in
Iraq, according to The Associated
Press. The Department of Defense
did not report any deaths over the
weekend.
ELECTION
From Page 1A
that saw MAP member MSA Rep.
Anton Vuljaj face a felony and a
misdemeanor charge for allegedly
tampering with the March 2006
elections and MSA President Zack
Yost, one of the party's founders,
come under fire for his creation of
a Facebook.com group that mocked
MSA Rep. Tim Hull's Asperger's
syndrome, a mild form of autism.
MAP-backed candidates swept
their elections with only the inde-
pendent MSA candidate for LSA,
Alex Serwer, a sophomore, edg-
ing out a MAP candidate. Last fall,
MAP took all of the LSA seats, and
last springthey took all but one.
Similar to the election of inde-
pendent candidate Hull in last
spring's elections, Serwer received
significantly fewer individualvotes,
meaning that those votes had to be
weighted heavily in his favor. Each
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voter prioritizes their candidates,
and a higher priority results in
more points toward election.
The Defend Affirmative Action
Party, which is devoted to increas-
ing diversity on campus, garnered
three seats in the election, one
fewer than in last fall's midterm
election. Although the party ran a
larger slate than it has in the past,
it did not beat both MAP and inde-
pendent candidates in any race.
DAAP Party Chair Maricruz
Lopez said her party's poor show-
ing could have been a result of the
lack of awareness of the campaign.
She said this was a direct result
of the controversy over whether
or not the School of Public Policy
would receive a seat, which pushed
the election back to the latest date
possible.
"There are a lot of students who
aren't aware of the MSA election,"
Lopez said. "That whole scandal in
trying to disenfranchise Public Poli-
cy messed up the whole election."
Monday, December 3, 2007 - 3A
She said that her party would
be prepared for a much stronger
showing in spring, because the
DAAP candidates, who were most-
ly running for the first time, gained
valuable experience.
"All of our candidates are very
optimistic for the spring," she said.
Notable MAP incumbents Stella
Binkevich, an MSA representative
and chair of the powerful Budget
Priorities Committee, and Sabrina
Shingwani, MSA treasurer, both
won their MSA elections in LSA.
Binkevich said she was glad to
win her seat and was proud of her
role as part of the senior MAP lead-
ership.
There were ties for the School
of Music and School of Pharmacy
seat, which will be resolved in the
upcoming weeks. The tied can-
didates will make a case for their
seat in front of MSA at tomorrow's
meeting, and the assembly will
decide on who will represent the
school.
LSA senior Aghogho Edevbie organized a meeting yesterday to plan a carr
to force Michigan Student Assembly President Zack Yost to resign.
YOST
From Page1A
Despite the e-mail's blunt
language, not everyone in atten-
dance shared Edevbie's opinion
that Yost should resign immedi-
ately.
Some students in attendance
said that if Yost resigns now, he
would never be held accountable
for what they see as the campus-
wide effects of his comments.
Also, they expressed fear that
students may forget the effects
of such insensitivity if Yost steps
down from his position.
Sam Harper, president of the
University's chapter of the Col-
lege Democrats, said that if Yost
resigns, students could miss the
chance to learn from the situa-
tion.
LSA senior Andrew Bronstein
said that whether or not Yost
resigns is of secondary impor-
tance to whether or not MSA
makes efforts to increase "inclu-
siveness" of the assembly and of
the campus at large.
Edevbie said changing MSA
culture was a noble goal, but
Yost's resignation needs to be
the first priority. Aside from the
flyers, Edevbie said the student
body should send letters to alum-
ni asking them to stop donating
money to the University until
Yost resigns.
LSA senior Peter Borock, a for-
mer MSA representative, suggest-
ed that the University offer classes
dealing with discrimination based
on disabilities. This would do more
to raise awareness about the issue
than Yost's resignation, he said.
Borock was the communications
director for the former MSA party
Students 4 Michigan, of which
Yost was a member.
OtherstudentssaidYostshould
be given the option of reviving
the defunct MSA Students with
Disabilities Committee and work
at increasing awareness within
the assembly and on campus of
discrimination against students
with disabilities. If he chooses
not to do this, they said, he should
resign.
Edevbie said he wanted the
meeting to remain focused on
what he saw as the primary
objective - pressuring Yost to
resign from MSA immediately
- but several of the attending
students didn't want to discuss
it. Edevbie said that attempting
to increase awareness on campus
about discrimination against stu-
dents with disabilities is impor-
tant, but it could be discussed at
another meeting. This meeting,
he said, should have been devoted
to removing Yost.
Yost would not be the first MSA
member to lose his position over
the scandal LSA junior Kenneth
Baker, a former MSA represen-
tative, announced last week that
he would resign his position over
his membership in the Facebook
group. He resigned after learning
that LSA Student Government
had organized a trial to recall his
seat. He sent an e-mail message
to LSA-SG President Keith Reis-
inger and MSA on Saturday to
officially confirm his resignation.
When Edevbie began discuss-
ing the logistics of his campaign
at yesterday's meeting, all but six
of the attendees left, including
Harper, Borock, Bronstein and
the four MSA representatives.
Edevbie and the remaining
students discussed distributing
flyers on campus and then dis-
banded.
After the meeting, Edevbie
said he thinks some students
- including Harper and Borock
- came to intentionally steer
the meeting off course. He said
he believes they were trying to
divert the group's attention away
from pressuring Yost to resign.
"We're just looking for the res-
ignation of Yost," Edevbie said.
He said it isn't personal, but it's
a way to move forward from this
troubling incident.
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