Bosso elections: two disqualified

TWO aspiring Highlanders Football Club executive members Jabulani Mangwana-Tshuma and Mgcini Mpofu had their nomination papers turned down by the electoral court after failing to meet constitutional requirements.

The electoral court sat yesterday morning to verify the nomination papers for candidates who are eyeing the three executive positions of chairman, secretary and committee member.

Any aspiring candidate had to be nominated by one club member and also have their nomination form signed by 10 supporting members.

All the members have to be bona fide Highlanders members whose membership should have been running for at least two years.

The disqualified aspirants failed to meet the above requirement.

Mpofu and Mangwana-Tshuma were after the committee member's position, which is also being contested by incumbent Wisdom Mabhena, Charles "Six-One" Moyo and Dumisani Mabhena.

Highlanders' board member Luke Mnkandla who is also the returning officer confirmed the development.

"The verification process is done and all the successful candidates will now be presented to Highlanders members during Sunday's annual general meeting. Only two were disqualified and that is Jabulani Mangwana-Tshuma and Mgcini Mpofu. They failed to meet the requirements of Article 11.3 of the Highlanders' constitution which states that one has to have 10 supporting signatures whose membership would have been running for at least 24 uninterrupted months.

"As we did the verification process, we discovered that the two fell short of one supporting member meaning that they got nine out of 10," Mnkandla said.

All three chairman's contenders, incumbent Themba Ndlela, Peter Dube and Mandla Moyo had their papers in order.

Ndlela beat Mandla by less than 30 votes in 2009 to take up the chairman's seat.

Dube, a former club secretary, who turned down calls to take up the Highlanders' hot seat in 2009, has decided to give it a go.

The chairman's race is likely to be an interesting one, as all the three candidates believe they have good backing from bona fide members.

Three candidates, Andrew Tapela, Emmett Ndlovu and Donald Ndebele are vying for the secretary's position.

With Tapela and Ndlovu having declared their interest for the secretary's position, Ndebele quietly picked up his papers hours before the submission deadline on Saturday.

He made the grade as he had the required 10 bona fide members supporting his candidature.

The elections are set for 5 February and Mnkandla said only members with cards and national registration cards would be allowed to vote to curb rigging.

"Voting is open to members whose membership is a year plus. Only members with their cards and national identity documents will be allowed to cast their votes. By demanding national identity documents we are trying to do away with issues to do with rigging whereby someone might decide to be mischievous and try to use a friend's card who might be out of the country to vote," said Mnkandla.

Meanwhile, Ndodana Ngwenya of Ndoe's Transport donated 10 balls to Highlanders yesterday afternoon at the clubhouse.

"For now he has donated 10 balls and has pledged five more every month," said Ndlela yesterday.

Bosso chairman Ndlela, Tapela and new coach Kelvin Kaindu attended the presentation.