The Student Government Elections committee has disqualified four prospective candidates from running in the forthcoming Student Government Association elections, alleging that the candidates have not accumulated enough hours to qualify. 

Juniors Latia White, Cheryl Clark and Chan Hall were told by the committee that they are ineligible to run for Miss North Carolina Central University. Reginald Boney, also a junior and a candidate for Mr. NCCU, faces the same problem.

“It’s just really unfair,” said Boney.

According to the four candidates, when they enrolled as freshman the NCCU course catalog stated that they needed 90 credit hours to be considered seniors. The new course catalog states that a student needs to have 96 credit hours to be considered a senior.

“I don’t think we should have to follow a rule that was put in place after we came in,” said White.

The candidates were notified that they were ineligible to run two days before official campaigning began.

“I just feel cheated,” said Clark.

“I had a campaign team of over 100 students and I feel like I let people down.”

According to SGA Elections Chair Samantha Carter, the candidates have been removed from the official ballot.

“I really think the screening process should have been done well in advance,” said Hall.

Carter said she also had been under the impression that the candidates only needed 90 credit hours, but was later told differently.

“Before I called the candidates, I checked to see if they had 90,” said Carter. “None of them had 90 or 96.”

The new rules require all candidates for executive offices to have at least 96 credit hours in order to run.

According to the SGA Constitution, all candidates running for Mr. and Miss NCCU must be classified as seniors, as determined by the Office of the University Registrar, by June 1.

“After last year I began to see how politics really works around here,” said Hall. “It’s all about who kisses whose ass.”

This year’s election problems come just a year after constitutional issues led to a two-week delay in the announcement of SGA presidential results.

Vice Chancellor for Student Affairs Roland Gaines said the elections held Friday, March 31, 2006, were unconstitutional because the SGA followed the 2005 SGA Constitution, which had not yet been signed by the chancellor.

Under the 2003 constitution, the one under which the SGA should have been operating, elections should have been held on a Tuesday, Wednesday or Thursday.

The SGA eventually released the results, with the former president, Renee Clark, saying that a pending grievance had prevented the Association from releasing them and that the grievance had been solved.

Mukhtar Raqib, the current SGA president, was declared the winner, beating A.J. Donaldson, Brandon Sanders and Sean Kornegay.