FIFA directs BFA to hold election

The world football governing body, FIFA, has this week written to the Botswana Football Association (BFA) instructing the troubled organisation to hold election as per their constitutional requirements.

The letter comes soon after the BFA National Executive Committee (NEC) failed to elect the Electoral board as mandated by last year’s General assembly. During their annual indaba last year the BFA assembly had assigned its NEC to elect members who will form an electoral board, which will oversee this year’s election scheduled for end of this month.

The said election is expected to usher in a new NEC, which is expected to run the affairs of the association for the next four years as per new FIFA statute. However, a month ago when the current NEC was supposed to deliberate and act as per the assembly’s assignment, chaos erupted within the NEC as members with the majority calling for the election to be postponed to next year.

However, after their disagreement on holding election at the end of this month, the BFA wrote a letter to FIFA to seek advice. However, the football world governing body vehemently instructed the BFA to hold election without fail. Therefore it means the association has to urgently appoint an electoral board.

“Yes I can confirm that FIFA has instructed us to hold election as per requirements,” the association’s president Tebogo Sebego told BG Sport this week. Sebego further explained that they will now write to both University of Botswana’s Democracy project, which is an autonomous body responsible for overseeing elections and has in the past been involved into national political elections.

Moreover, Sebego said they will even invite Independent Electoral Commission (IEC) to intervene and play the watchdog role. However, FIFA has since indicated that those who will not be satisfied with the election outcome are free to take their matter to FIFA for its intervention. FIFA’s intervention on BFA has come at the right time, as there is already an aura of discontent within BFA affiliates.

This week some affiliates who spoke to BG Sport on condition of anonymity expressed fear that should the election go ahead as scheduled, there might be another court room case at Lekidi, which has been the order of the day in recent months.
BG Sport   sources within the BFA, felt that those who would lose the election would go straight to the Court of Appeal (CoA) to protest unlawful election. Currently three candidates have already thrown their names in the election hat for possible nomination for the BFA presidency.

The three are Solomon Mantswe, currently a Botswana Premier League board member and Police XI chairman. There is also Mochudi Center Chiefs President MacLean Letshwiti and the incumbent, Tebogo Sebego who seeks to continue. BFA election is expected to be held at the association’s Annual General Meeting on the 30th of this month.