Walter Lindwall will be the new student body president after winning the election against Jacob Rajlich 1790 to 1076, according to the unofficial referendum results from the Campus Student Election Commission.

Lindwall, junior in LAS, and his running mate Alice Zheng, sophomore in LAS, highlighted five key points to focus on in their platform: academic issues, diversity and inclusion, graduate employees, sexual assault prevention and mental health support.

Lindwall and Zheng believed these areas are the most important problems the campus faces, and they are not getting enough attention from Illinois Student Government.

“I really want to improve our sexual assault prevention policies; I want some concrete change in the actual administration,” Lindwall said. “I want to improve mental health resources, something we hear the most criticism about.”

Lindwall has been part of ISG as a parliamentarian, a committee member and a senator in the past. He said he wants to help campus because he loves the University and has friends on campus who struggle with barriers in education and living a healthy life.

Lindwall said he chose Zheng as his running mate because of her long-time involvement in the senate, her academic qualifications and her work on legislation in the senate.

“I have worked with Walter in Senate for this past year and he has clearly demonstrated himself to be capable, knowledgeable and driven when it comes to serving the student body,” Zheng said in an email.

Zheng hopes to accomplish the issues highlighted on their platform. The three she believes to be the most important are diversity and inclusion, mental health resources and sexual assault prevention.

“I feel like now going in to next year, Alice and I have the opportunity to make a lot more waves as president and vice president,” Lindwall said.

Rajlich, sophomore in Engineering and runner-up in the election, highlighted campus affordability in his platform.

“To me, it’s not important that I be the student government president,” Rajlich said. “I think it is important that we have someone that is willing to stand up to the University administration, because at times, they conflict with us. I’ve had to do that some already and I think it is important that we have someone that is willing to listen.”

Rajlich’s running mate was Michael Branco-Katcher, sophomore in Engineering and ISG senator.

“I would love to stay involved in student government. Student government has been really special to me this last year,” Rajlich said. “I’ve learned a lot through it, and I believe and I hope I have done some important work though it. “

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