The ousted President-elect of the Oxford Union George Abaraonye has claimed the current president is ‘inviting abuse’ towards him after he beat the incumbent’s girlfriend in elections earlier this year.
Mr Abaraonye lost a vote of confidence this week amid backlash over a series of social media posts in which he appeared to celebrate the shooting of Charlie Kirk.
Now he has accused current President Moosa Harraj of overseeing a ‘compromised poll’ and acting out of revenge on behalf of his girlfriend.
Writing this week, Mr Abaraonye claimed that the no-confidence vote, which saw 1,228 votes against him, meeting the two-thirds threshold, was affected by ‘untested’ regulations and said those campaigning to oust him had ‘unsupervised access’ to the email account collecting proxy votes.
He added on Instagram: ‘Many know, I long considered Moosa a mentor, my big brother in the Union who’d regularly refer to me as his “little brother”.
‘Our political divergence became entrenched only when I ran and won against his romantic partner in a democratic election last term.’
During the summer term, Mr Abaraonye had beaten committee member Rosalie Chapman, who is currently the ‘first lady’ of the Union, in elections to choose the next President by almost 200 votes.
Ms Chapman has since graduated from Oxford and is no longer involved with the Union, it is understood.
The ousted President-elect of the Oxford Union George Abaraonye (pictured) has claimed the current president of ‘inviting abuse’ towards him after beating his girlfriend in elections earlier this year
The current president of the Oxford Union, Moosa Harraj (pictured), denies the allegations and said he and Mr Abaraonye only fell out when the President-elect ‘put his own self-interest above the institution’
She said Mr Abaraonye was merely trying to ‘detract from his own actions’ by painting the row as a ‘personal feud’, something she described as ‘patently untrue’.
The current President has also fiercely rejected the claims he is acting in response to Ms Chapman’s defeat.
Mr Harraj, who used to be close friends with Mr Abaraonye, told the Times: ‘The issue only started when he put his own self-interest above the institution.
‘I told him when this all happened that this is horrible for the institution and it’s untenable to be head of a free speech society at the same time celebrating the murder of someone who was killed for speech.’
While Ms Chapman was running for a role in the Union in Autumn 2024, she was interviewed by police over the sending of anonymous messages accusing her rival of ‘inappropriate behaviour’.
She was identified and interviewed under caution by Thames Valley officers after sending out the messages and later claimed she had been the victim of ‘relentless misogynistic abuse, harassment and slander’ at the hands of her opponent.
She was interviewed on April 23, 2025 but the case was closed by officers the next day with no further action, it is understood.
Mr Abaraonye, who became president-elect of the historic debating society after a vote earlier this year, faced outrage after Mr Kirk was shot dead at a Utah Valley University event in September, in what US authorities called a political assassination.
During the summer term, Mr Abaraonye had beaten committee member Rosalie Chapman (pictured debating at the Union), in elections to choose the next President by almost 200 votes
George Abaraonye debating Charlie Kirk at the Oxford Union in May this year
Mr Kirk, 31, was an ally of US President Donald Trump and co-founder and chief executive of the right-wing youth organisation Turning Point USA.
The Times reported that in one message to fellow students in a WhatsApp chat, Mr Abaraonye wrote ‘Charlie Kirk got shot, let’s f****** go’, while another on his Instagram account read: ‘Charlie Kirk got shot loool.’
The Instagram post was later deleted after it was confirmed Mr Kirk had died, and Mr Abaraonye apologised.
But the Union faced a crisis nevertheless, with prominent speakers such as Republican senator Ted Cruz and former tennis player Serena Williams pulling out of upcoming events and donors freezing their funds.
Posting on social media last week, Oxford Stand Up To Racism said Mr Abaraonye has faced a tirade of racist abuse online since his comments came to light – something the ousted President has also posted about on social media.
Oxford Union’s statement in September condemned the racial abuse and threats he had received.
The Union has denied any allegations that the vote of no-confidence in Mr Abaraonye was compromised.
Mr Abaraonye has appealed to the Union’s disciplinary committee over the vote and has vowed to continue on as President-elect.
