UC BERKELEY – With student government elections just around the corner, Berkeley’s sitting president has been overruled and accused of tampering with the upcoming election, an executive vice-presidential candidate has been disqualified and an entire party could be banned.

Associated Students of the University of California (ASUC) President Teddy Liaw issued an executive order stating that election regulations had been too strictly enforced and needed to be relaxed. ASUC Judicial Council unanimously overruled Liaw.

The order was retroactive, illegal and intended to benefit Liaw’s own Student Action Coalition (SAC) party, ASUC Attorney General Nathan Quigley said.

“[I]t’s entirely corrupt,” Quigley said. “He doesn’t have the power to do this.”

Liaw said Judicial Council had been overzealous in enforcing election rules.

“Candidates for office have been charged with disqualification for typographical errors and other minor offenses,” Liaw wrote in his order. “The elections rules were not meant to be enforced in such a manner.”

Judicial Council disqualified Brian Bergman, an executive vice-presidential candidate for the rival Cal-SERVE/APPLE party. Bergman was censured for having inaccurately identified one of his endorsers in campaign literature. Two parties supporting Bergman had previously been censured for similar errors. By ASUC law, three censures disqualify a candidate.

Bergman said he would appeal one of the censures and continue to campaign.

SAC is under investigation by Judicial Council for making false claims in its campaign literature. If false claims were made, every SAC candidate could be disqualified.

– Nexus Staff Report