Candidate for Graduate Union President Xin Jin has been disqualified from the CUSU and GU elections. The decision was made by the Elections Committee, who called in Jin for a disciplinary meeting yesterday.

Jin has been forced to leave the presidential race following three breaches of conduct. These include using the GU logo on his publicity, which the Election Committee received complaints about, and his failure to register individuals who have been campaigning on his behalf.

The final dramatic breach of rules related to the issue of spam, as reported yesterday by Varsity, whereby over 1000 unsolicited emails were sent to individuals endorsing his candidacy. An email sent on Monday night from the Hermes account of MPhil Judge Business School student Yiwei Lin read: “My buddy Xin Jin, who is reading a PhD in supply chain management, is currently standing for Graduate Union President. Last year, he has organized a number of good campaigns for the sake of graduate community, including mature students, visa and family issues. He is keen to carry out this responsibility further - please kindly vote for management grad to lead 9000 Cambridge graduates.” The email also included a link to Xin’s manifesto and the CUSU-GU voting web page.

On Tuesday morning, Lin emailed all students on the Judge Business School mailing list, apologising for the “spam”, claiming that she “did not know about the candidate” and that someone had taken her password. Lin said that she was “very angry with the person sent the email under my name” and that she would “ask UCS [University Computing Service] for the MAC [Media Access Control] address that send (sic) the email to you, if required”.

Jin’s disqualification leaves only one candidate for the role of Graduate Union President, Richard Jones.