Former Athletics Association of Eswatini (AAE) Vice President Selby Shongwe is back to contest with the incumbent Zakhele Dlamini for the top seat amid concerns on how the election process has been handled by the current regime.
According to the AE constitution in Article 14.1, the association will hold its Elective Annual General Meeting (AGM) on March 11, 2023 at the Eswatini Electricity Company (EEC) Auditorium in Manzini, starting at 10:00 am.
The deadline for clubs to submit their nominees was on Friday, February 24 with the main focus being on the presidency where battle lines has been drawn between the incumbent and Shongwe but with the latter having issues on the constitutionality on how it is being used to skew out some of the aspirants.
The election process has been secretive with signs of malicious intent which was intended to lock out some aspirants to favor certain individuals. The time period between February 24 to March 11,2023 for nomination and election is rather too small for a country that wants to see improvement in sports.
“We cannot choose what we can use and shelve or turn a blind eye on what doesn’t favor certain circumstances. This may results into other problems, said one of the aspirants who did not want to be named due to the sensitivity of the matter.
Speaking exclusively to Athletics News, the presidential candidate, Shongwe from the Uneswa Athletics Club, gave an example of their neighboring country Botswana which their federation, Botswana Athletics Association (BAA) is heading to election and how their process has been fair and open to everyone see and also raise issue with ample time given to aspirants and the voters.
“We should be learning a thing or two from Botswana. In every election, we should vote for the idea not the person. It really shows Botswana has the interest of the sport at heart from the media, government and clubs,” said Shongwe.
According to the letter in our possession from Thoba Mazibuko the Chief Operations Officer of Athletics Eswatini addressed to all vying aspirants for different seats, the current office sent out the rules of engagement that included issues of being the Liswati citizen, someone who has been a former vice president of the federation.
The letter also requested the aspirants to present their Certified Copies of ID or Birth Certificate which according to them they wanted to ascertain if he was a Liswati citizen and/or has been a resident of Eswatini for more than ten years and whose residency is within the territory of the Federation.
Athletics News reached out to the president to clarify on the below four pillar points that aspirants wanted clarity on;
- Why he has not allowed for an equal voting ground
- Why he wanted to hold three seats simultaneously (he is president of AE, Vice President CAA and Southern Region president)
- Which clubs are active and which ones are not allowed to vote.
- Why were the electoral guidelines and rules released late
The president had not responded to us by the time we were going to Air the story.
The current office was pushed to the wall by the members and they published the full list on their official social media handle, facebook.
The AGM will also be addressed by the Confederation of African Athletics (CAA) and CAA-SR (Southern Region) where the incumbent Dlamini is now president, World Athletics (WA) with consideration of amendments to the constitution
Facebook Comments