Ruiz Named Next Institute of Politics President After Uncontested Election

The Institute of Politics announced its new executive team on Monday morning without holding an election, bypassing the traditional process because none of the top four positions were contested.

Lorenzo Z. Ruiz ’27 and William M. Smialek ’27 will be the next president and vice president of the IOP, respectively, though the pair plans to propose a constitutional amendment to lead as co-presidents. Starting on Jan. 1, they will take over alongside treasurer Jack W.H. Tueting ’27 and communications director Dhara N. Patel ’27.

Andrew J. Zonneveld ’26, a member of the three-person election commission charged with administering the process, said it felt like a “waste of time” to hold an election and a candidate forum given the results were preordained.

Zonneveld acknowledged that it “maybe isn’t the best look” for the IOP — the hub of political activity at Harvard — to run an uncontested election, but said the outcome was unrelated to the candidates.

“I think not having these elections, or not having contested races, isn’t really a reflection on the candidates, but more so people’s overall perspective of the IOP, or their ability to engage on campus and to have the time to commit to those positions,” Zonneveld said.

Ruiz, who served as communications director this year, said the team was unaware they were running unopposed when they declared their candidacy on Nov. 2.

“Evidently, people painted a picture in their head that we were going to run,” Ruiz said. “We can’t really interpret what their headspace was, but that’s how it panned out.”

Smialek said he was “shocked” to learn that all of the candidates were running unopposed and called it “anticlimactic” to learn of the results via a “rinky dinky text message” from the election commission.

When Zonneveld and the commission realized that none of the positions were contested, they considered attempting to recruit more candidates, he said, but ultimately decided to stay out of the process.

“It’s not the prerogative of the election commission to be like, ‘We don’t have enough candidates, so we should go and try and encourage more people to run,’” Zonneveld said. “We believe that is something the program chairs should be doing, encouraging people to run.”

Though the executive team ran uncontested, Ruiz noted that there are competitive races to lead the IOP’s various student programs. Elections will be held next week for those roles.

“I wouldn’t say that there’s any sort of concern,” Ruiz said. “There are a lot of people running for positions and a lot of people pursuing leadership this year. It just wasn’t in the executive team.”

Once in their positions, Smialek and Ruiz plan to switch from a president and vice president model to a co-presidency in an effort they say will “democratize the IOP.”

Smialek said that unlike the other members of the executive team, the vice president lacked designated responsibility under the current structure.

“It kind of leaves the vice president being like, ‘Where do they fit in? Where is their corner? Where is their niche? What is their specialty?’” Smialek said.

Ruiz and Smialek’s campaign also touted their commitment to ideological diversity at the IOP — a focus of the organization in recent years and a priority of former IOP Director Setti Warren, who died suddenly on Nov. 2.

“We have done a pretty good job of making sure that we champion, and make sure that conservative students feel like they have a home, and they have a place here,” Smialek said. “We want to continue to expand those opportunities.”

But Smialek said the team would also work to “earn every single person’s vote in the IOP,” despite the lack of an election.

Zonneveld, the elections commissioner, said he hoped future IOP leadership will be intentional about making it easier for candidates to run and removing “the stigma of losing.”

“I ran my own executive election and I lost,” Zonneveld said. “It’s better to run and to lose than to not run at all and to have these uncontested elections, right?”

—Staff writer Elise A. Spenner can be reached at [email protected]. Follow her on X at @EliseSpenner.

—Staff writer Tanya J. Vidhun can be reached at [email protected]. Follow her on X @tanyavidhun.