Current ASNMSU President Kevin Prieto says that despite elections for his predecessor on the horizon this week, he will not be endorsing a candidate.

Prieto, who is nearing the end of his one-year term as President, believes it is not his place to endorse either of the two current presidential candidates – current Vice-President Emerson Morrow and current Chief of Staff Carley Casey.

“I really do want to stay out of it [the election]. The way I see it is my time is up here. I do not want to skew the opinions of the students,” Prieto said during an interview on Friday, March 2, “I just don’t think it would be fair right now.”

Despite working closely with both of the candidates given how close each respective position is with the presidency, Prieto says that he is confident in either of the candidates if elected, “I know either of the candidates will be amazing assets to ASNMSU because they have already seen the system and they know how it works.”

“An endorsement is one of those things where the president puts his word out on the line and really having that effect to change the opinion depending on how much the President is respected at the time” Prieto added.

Although outgoing ASNMSU Presidents have typically endorsed candidates, this will now make two years in a row in which the officeholder will not make a public endorsement.

Last year, when Prieto, who was the Vice-President at the time, was running for his office, then ASNMSU President Matt Bose also declined to endorse any of the three candidates.

Prieto says at the time he did not understand why Bose would not endorse anyone, “At the time I was running last year I was thinking ‘wow I can’t believe he won’t endorse me – I am his Vice President’.”

However, Prieto says that now that he is in his position, he can understand why Bose did not endorse anyone and he based much of that on why he chooses not to endorse this election season, “I was talking to him [Bose] a couple of days ago and I told him ‘I totally get it why you didn’t pick an endorsement’ – it’s hard to’’ Prieto said.

The last endorsement from a sitting ASNMSU President came in 2016 when then-President Dustin Chavez endorsed then-candidate Matt Bose, who was attorney general at the time. Bose won in a landslide that year, garnering over 71% of the total vote.

Prieto says that his decision to not endorse is based off the fact that he is comfortable with both candidates, having worked closely with each – saying if this was not the case he would likely endorse candidates – “It totally depends on the people running. If there was a person whose platform I did not agree with and knew they were blatantly telling lies I would then endorse the other candidate.”

On a separate note, Prieto also responded to statements that Morrow made on last week’s Round Up News and Culture Podcast interview when Morrow said he felt Prieto could have done a better job in including him in staffing decisions of the executive branch.

Prieto said that although he would have liked to have the luxury of having the Vice-President involved in staffing decisions, he did not feel it was necessary, “I heard that [interview] and I’ll say that we were put in a tough position in that we had one week to get everyone hired” Prieto said, “Me and [current presidential candidate] Carley [Casey] had a job to do and we did not need anyone to slow it down so we were on a one-way track but I do think it would have been beneficial however it’s not necessary because its two separate entities [Senate and Executive branches].”

Prieto says he is confident and comfortable that whatever decision the student body makes will be the right one “I want to see the best person win for the job” he said. “If they want it bad enough they will work for it, they won’t need my endorsement.”

Elections begin March 5 and run until March 9 at 5 P.M. To read more on The Round Up’s election coverage, click here.