Students 4 Michigan members holed themselves up in the Michigan League Thursday night for almost seven and a half to choose candidates for the upcoming elections for the Michigan Student Assembly and LSA Student Governments.

LSA junior Nicole Stallings won the party's bid to succeed current MSA President Jesse Levine, who ran with S4M last year. LSA junior Justin Paul will run for vice president.

Stallings was Levine's vice president and Paul was his chief of staff.

In another race, the party nominated junior Joanna Slott for president of LSA-SG and sophomore Justin Benson for vice president.

LSA-SG President Andrew Yahkind thought he may want to put his name in the candidacy hat, but decided against it.

"I considered, but stepped aside when I saw our candidates gave us the best chance of winning," he said.

Last week also saw the elections for the University Engineering Council, the governing student body for the Engineering School. Engineering senior John Zhang was elected president and engineering school junior Rahul Daswani was elected vice president.

In the March MSA elections, the party will face competition from the newly formed Michigan Progressive Party, founded last semester by LSA junior Walter Nowinski.

MPP plans to nominate its slate of candidates sometime this week.

The Defend Affirmative Action Party will run against both parties. DAAP seeks to do everything they can politically to defeat the Michigan Civil Rights Initiative, the ballot proposal that may put an end to some affirmative action programs in Michigan.

Levine, and former vice president Alicia Benavides - who has since resigned her position and been replaced by Stallings - won last year in a landslide victory over Rackham graduate student Kate Stenvig and LSA senior Monica Smith from the Defend Affirmative Action Party.

S4M received 2,008 votes, beating the DAAP by 1,356 votes.

S4M will focus this semester's campaign strategy around a three-pronged platform.

The first goal is to strengthen MSA's connection with students on campus. This effort will include publicizing executive office hours.

S4M also wants to continue to work on solving campus safety and housing issues. Lastly, their attention will be turned making sure they have enough money to stay out of debt and execute their events.

Stallings said her personal campaign efforts will focus on talking with student groups and individual students.

"You can flyer campus all you want, it's not the same," she said.

During last fall's elections, S4M - formed from the remnants of the previously dominant Students First - took control of almost 70 percent of the available MSA seats.

Last week also saw the elections for the University Engineering Council, the governing student body for the Engineering School. Engineering senior John Zhang was elected president and Engineering school junior Rahul Daswani was elected vice president.