Carmen Vargas was the most voted candidate in the second round of the elections for the rector of the University of Seville held this Monday, making her the first rector of the institution in its 520-year history. According to information provided by the university, provisional data gives him the support of 50.81% of the votes validly cast, once the weighting coefficients have been applied, while the candidate José Luis Gutiérrez received the support of 44.01% and the blank votes were 4.97%.
The elections can be considered historic in many respects. For the first time they took place with weighted universal suffrage, breaking with an inertia that lasted 21 years in which the process was limited to seclusion. And again for the first time, seven candidates participated in the first round: four who held positions in the government of the current rector, Miguel Ángel Castro (Carmen Vargas, Ana López, Felipe Rosa and Ángeles Gallego) and three who were not part of the previous leadership (José Luis Gutiérrez, Pastora Moreno and Alfonso Castro).
All, to a greater or lesser extent, have focused their campaigns on some common axes: change in management, greater autonomy of the centers, greater transparency and participation of the educational community, in particular of students, and how to make ends meet.
For the definitive proclamation of the new rector we will have to wait until November 14th, since the period for claims and challenges to the provisional results is open from November 11th to 13th. Once the final proclamation has been made, the result will be communicated to the Junta de Andalucía.
Election day took place without any major incidents at the 81 tables distributed across all campuses of the University of Seville. In the second round of this electoral process, a total of 64,554 people were called to vote: 3,065 in sector A (teachers from university teaching bodies), 2,323 in sector B (teaching and research staff not belonging to sector A), 56,115 in sector C (students) and 3,051 in sector D (technical, managerial, administrative and service staff).
Once the votes cast this Monday by the university community have been counted and the early voting has been carried out, which can be carried out on 6 and 7 November in the General Secretariat or in the secretariats of each school and faculty of the university, the participation results are as follows: 78.17% in sector A, 45.24% in sector B, 13.81% in sector C and 74.21% in sector D.
