A former Skipton Girls High School student is expected to make a second bid to become President of the prestigious Oxford Union - after losing out the first time on a technicality.

Ruzwana Bashir, 20, beat her only rival Georgina Costa, daughter of a vice-president of an American bank, by 790 votes to 601. The win should have meant she followed Prime Ministers William Gladstone, Lord Salisbury, Herbert Asquith, Harold Macmillan and Edward Heath into the President's chair. But she controversially lost out on the chance to become the first British-born Asian to hold the post because of an electoral technicality.

If she had held the post she would have been President over the summer term.

To stand again, Miss Bashir must seek nomination in the last week of February.

The election is on March 5. The winner will be President in the autumn term.

The row flared because Miss Bashir wrote questions directly on to Miss Costa's manifesto, thus breaking Rule 33 of the society's constitution. She should have written them on a separate piece of paper.

Ambrose Faulks, a former President, lodged the complaint after declaration of the result.

Miss Bashir admitted to a tribunal to underlining parts of the manifesto and writing questions above it. She believed this was an appropriate way to comment on her opponent's manifesto.

The tribunal ruled that the election result had not been affected, but it had no choice but to enforce the penalty of disqualification which is laid out in the rules.

Oxford Union President Edward Tomlin-son said: "The main problem is the clause that states that any breach of Rule 33 leads to automatic disqualification no matter how trivial the breach."

He said he would like to make changes to this clause during his term as President.

Diana Chambers, former head teacher of Skipton Girls High, said she was not surprised Ruzwana had done so well in elections for one of the most prestigious posts in student politics. "Everybody knew her, she had an outgoing personality," she said. "She was very bright."

Other former Presidents of the Union include Benazir Bhutto, who went on to become Prime Minister of Pakistan, former Conservative leader William Hague and playwright Dennis Potter.