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The Oxford Union president-elect has been ousted after losing a vote of no confidence in a landslide. George Abaronye, 20, a student at Oxford University, was removed as head of the prestigious debating society following backlash over "inappropriate" remarks that appeared to celebrate the fatal shooting of political commentator Charlie Kirk. Final voting figures show that 1,228 members voted to remove Mr Abaronye, while only 501 supported him. A total of 1,746 members cast ballots in person and by proxy, with 17 ballots either void, spoiled, or otherwise disqualified. But Mr Abaronye has insisted he remains in post, claiming the vote was “compromised”. The vote took place after he submitted a motion of no confidence in himself in an attempt to reclaim what he called “true accountability and (to reaffirm) that the Oxford Union must remain a place where students can make mistakes, apologise sincerely, and learn from them”. In a statement following the vote, Mr Abaronye alleged serious procedural failings, claiming that election officials mishandled proxy votes and that the count was suspended due to concerns over the vote's legitimacy. Citing Union rules, he argues the result is not valid until reviewed by the Disciplinary Committee and maintains that he remains the rightful president-elect. He also denies any misconduct by his campaign team and insists he has majority student support. Mr Abaronye’s full statement reads: “This poll was compromised from the moment Moosa Harraj and his majority on the Standing Committee brought compromised and untested Poll Regulations. “Donovan Lock who ran the election shared around the email account collecting proxy votes, including to personnel who campaigned to have George ousted, who had unsupervised access. “We do not know if or how many proxy votes have been tampered with. “The Union’s Electoral Officials suspended the count because they believed that no legitimate and true result could be reached as a result of procedural failures. “We equivocally deny that any representative appointed by George engaged in intimidating or disruptive behaviour. “The reason for the suspension was Donovan Lock himself saying ‘No result is possible’ due to unresolved procedural concerns. The official audio recording confirms this, and the representatives for the Yes campaign have confirmed this too. “Because of these extremely serious issues, on Monday afternoon before any ballots had been counted, the matter was referred to the disciplinary committee by the No Campaign. “Under Rule 47(h)(v), this purported result is suspended until that Committee and any Disciplinary Appeals Committee has resolved the complaint. “George Abaraonye is and remains the President-Elect per the Oxford Union Rules. “George is proud and thankful to have the support of well in excess of a majority of students at Oxford, who voted to have a safe election and resist attempts to subvert democracy.” Mr Abaronye, who became president-elect of the debating society after a vote earlier this year, faced fierce criticism after he made comments last month that seemingly welcomed the news that right-wing activist Charlie Kirk had been shot. “Charlie Kirk got shot let’s f*****ng go,” wrote the Politics, Philosophy and Economics student. Another message, purportedly sent from Abaraonye’s Instagram account, read: “Charlie Kirk got shot loool.” He later deleted the message after learning about Mr Kirk’s death, admitting he “acted poorly” without “knowing about the situation”. Mr Abaronye said he had not realised Kirk had died when he posted the messages. “I retracted and deleted my comments, and the stories came out a day later saying I celebrated his death. But at this point I had no clue,” he said. When asked if he would have said it if he had seen the video of the shooting, he said “no”.
