adminFatima Bulla Sports Reporter
ZIFA yesterday unveiled the Electoral Committee which will be responsible for organising and supervising all football election processes for the next four years.
Following a Fifa directive that all elections be run by an electoral committee established in terms of the Fifa electoral code, Zifa president Cuthbert Dube yesterday announced the 11-member committee and this saw the association’s former vice-president Tendai Madzorera bouncing back into football administration since the end of his term in 2010.
Madzorera, who was once the chairperson of the Premier Soccer League between 2002 and 2006 as well as the secretary of the now-defunct Amazulu, is currently the managing director of Nala Farm in Nyamandlovu.
Zimbabwe Prisons and Correctional Services’ Elizabeth Sibanda scored a first as she came in as the only woman in the committee having also served as secretary of Division One team Flame Lily between 2002 and 2005.
The committee has a strong legal representative in judge of the Labour Court of Zimbabwe Sello Nare; Kennedy Sibanda, who is a consultant on legal matters; Tinofara Hove, a lawyer with TK Hove and Partners; Musekiwa Mbanje, a third-year law student at the University of Zimbabwe; as well as Tichawana Nyahuma, a legal practitioner with P. Takawadiyi and Associates. Lawyer and Zifa legal advisor Ralph Maganga completes the line-up of the members with a law background in the committee.
Also appointed by Dube is former national team defender and member of the Zifa High Performance technical committee Charles Sibanda.
Zifa’s honorary members Cornelius Bganya and Passious Masunda are also in the same committee.
The committee’s secretary and Zifa chief executive Jonathan Mashingaidze alongside Bganya, Masunda and Maganga will be ex-officio members by virtue of their current placement in football.
Dube said the committee is an independent body charged with overseeing all the electoral processes.
“The new Zifa electoral committee, established in terms of the Zifa electoral code’s article 3.1, is an independent body charged with overseeing the electoral processes in respect of the nominations, vetting of candidates, production of final list of candidates, production of electoral material, namely nomination forms, ballot papers and the holding of the elections.
A composite report shall be submitted to the Zifa board by the electoral committee at the end of March 2014,” Dube said.
Any individual who has grounds to contest the decision of the electoral committee should file an appeal within 96 hours accompanied by a fee which is yet to be announced.
According to the Zifa Electoral Code, the committee is appointed by the Zifa executive committee and installed by the Zifa congress.
The Zifa executive committee also appoints three substitute members of the electoral committee and three of the election appeal committee as well as two substitute members of the appeal committee.
Speaking on behalf of the electoral committee, Madzorera thanked the Zifa president and the board for the appointments, highlighting that it was an honour to the members.
“During the course of my association with football I have learnt to talk after the job has been done. I have no illusions and I believe all members of the committee have no illusions at all on the job at hand.
“The schedule is tight because next month elections must start and by the end of March we should have a full Zifa assembly in place being led by a president and hopefully it will be led president Dube.
“In politics when a new nation is born it is only born after elections. I observe carefully with interest when politicians are going to elections, there is a lot of backbiting and so is football. I have gone through these things in the 19 or so years that I have been in football administration. Fortunately, I have not lost an election. If elections are held freely and fairly in accordance with the statutes there should be no reason to cry foul,” he said.
Online Reporter