Chronicle Editor
Sikhumbuzo Moyo, Senior Sports Reporter
HIGHLANDERS members will tomorrow meet at the club house to elect a secretary general and committee member from a field of seven candidates vying for the two positions.
The chairman’s post is uncontested following the barring of the charismatic Ernest Maphepha Sibanda from the race by the club’s board of directors on the basis that he once worked for another football institution during his ‘rehabilitation’ period.
The decision to eliminate Maphepha from the race left only one candidate, a retired soldier Kenneth Mhlophe and he will become the next Bosso supremo in successive terms to go in uncontested after his predecessor Peter Dube also walked in without any challenger following the disqualification of Maphepha in 2015. Despite the second disqualification, Mhlophe and Maphepha have made peace and sources said the latter promised to give the incoming club chairman all the guidance that he might need during his tenure ‘for the benefit of our club, Highlanders’.
“We have our elections on Sunday (tomorrow) morning. One position, that of the chairman, will not be contested leaving the secretary general and committee member’s posts. It’s not going to be a long process as such and this is the last part of our annual general meeting, which started last week with the business side of things,” said chief executive officer Nhlanhla Dube.
Three members, Israel Moyo, Nkululeko Ndlovu and Siphatho Ncube are vying for the secretary general’s post to replace Emmett Ndlovu while four, Charles ‘Six One’ Moyo, Silandulo Sibanda, Peacot Hadebe and incumbent Wisdom Mabhena will be seeking members’ mandate to hold the committee member’s position.
All the candidates will be given a brief moment to sell their candidatures to the electorate and while many have ignored that brief moment, to some it has been critical as was the case in the race for the vice chairman’s post in 2015 in which Mhlophe lost to Modern Ngwenya who used the moment to charm a few members who had earlier on been known to be on Mhlophe’s corner, only to change their mind after a verbal persuasion by Ngwenya.
What will be critical in the members’ choices tomorrow will be the unavoidable Fifa requirement of five years football experience or knowledge from the aspiring candidates. Three of the eight candidates will be new to the election race, Ndlovu, Sibanda and Hadebe while the other have either won or lost in their previous bids for office.
Ncube is a former committee member and is credited with the once mighty Highlanders Royals, another key requirement on the Fifa club licensing which some members seem to blindly think is a Zifa imposed directive meant to eliminate some candidates from the race.— @skhumoyo2000.
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