KAY-MARIE FLETCH­ER

Se­nior Re­porter

kay-marie.fletch­er@guardian.co.tt

While the world was anx­ious to know who would be­come the 47th pres­i­dent of the Unit­ed States of Amer­i­ca, many uni­ver­si­ty stu­dents re­mained un­fazed by the out­come.

As bal­lots were be­ing count­ed across the US yes­ter­day, many stu­dents at­tend­ing the Uni­ver­si­ty of the West In­dies St Au­gus­tine Cam­pus said nei­ther were they in­ter­est­ed in watch­ing the elec­tions un­fold nor were they wor­ried about who would win. 

Some stu­dents said they were get­ting their up­dates on the elec­tion from Tik­Tok. Some stu­dents con­fessed they did not know yes­ter­day was the US elec­tion date. How­ev­er, those who were in tune with the elec­tion felt both Vice Pres­i­dent Ka­mala Har­ris and for­mer pres­i­dent Don­ald Trump could win. 

Speak­ing to Guardian Me­dia yes­ter­day, first-year UWI stu­dent Joshua McKen­zie said, “I think it’s go­ing to be a very close elec­tion, but I, per­son­al­ly, have no bias in terms of who I think will win.” 

An­oth­er stu­dent of the UWI’s Fac­ul­ty of Sci­ence and Tech­nol­o­gy (FST), Ka­iron Rat­tan, said, “I’m not too en­tire­ly sure who will win. I feel like it doesn’t mat­ter ei­ther way it goes be­cause if Trump wins, there will be a lot of push­back from those sup­port­ing Ka­mala, and if Ka­mala wins, there will be push­back from Trump sup­port­ers.”

How­ev­er, an­oth­er FCT stu­dent, Janae Codogan, said, “I think that Ka­mala Har­ris might win the elec­tions.” 

Sec­ond-year stu­dent David Harp­er said, “I think it’s about 50/50 be­tween Trump or Ka­mala. I heard that Ka­mala just won Iowa, so I think it’s a lit­tle more skewed in her di­rec­tion now, but it’s any­one’s game re­al­ly.” 

Mus­lim stu­dents wor­ried about out­come

While some stu­dents weren’t too both­ered by the out­come, there were oth­ers, es­pe­cial­ly Mus­lims, who said they were fear­ful that a win for ei­ther Trump or Har­ris would still mean a loss for them. 

A fi­nal-year en­gi­neer­ing stu­dent, Arif Khan, said, “We are Mus­lims. We are mem­bers of the UWI Is­lam­ic so­ci­ety, and in par­tic­u­lar, the main thing that Mus­lims will look at is the po­si­tion of these fig­ures on the Is­rael/Pales­tine war, which by that as­so­ci­a­tion means that both Ka­mala Har­ris and Don­ald Trump are un­favourable.

“When he won the last elec­tion, I was ac­tu­al­ly think­ing of go­ing to Amer­i­ca to study, and one of the main rea­sons I did not go was be­cause of Don­ald Trump and his at­ti­tudes to­wards Mus­lims. Don­ald Trump has al­ways been an en­e­my of Mus­lim. His Mus­lim ban was very in­fa­mous ... I re­al­ly can’t say I see any­thing good com­ing out of it. It’s re­al­ly a case of who is the worse choice and who is the less­er worse choice. The less­er of the two evils, as they say.”

Khan added that Mus­lim vot­ers may favour a third can­di­date in the US elec­tion race from the Green Par­ty, Dr Jill Stein.

While the Gen-Z pop­u­la­tion wasn’t too in­vest­ed, Fi­nance Min­is­ter Colm Im­bert ad­mit­ted he had a favourite choice for pres­i­dent, but he re­mained tight-lipped about who that was. 

In a press con­fer­ence held yes­ter­day, Im­bert said, “Of course, I have my favourite, which I will not say, but you could fig­ure out who it is, younger gen­er­a­tion.”