By Mikia Kalati
MASERU — The Lesotho Football Association (Lefa) presidential election billed for Saturday has been marred by yet another controversy, the Lesotho Times can reveal.
This paper saw a letter from the District Football Association (DIFA) of Berea asking the association to consider a delegation appointed by its president, Thabo Pule, as null and void.
“We have been informed by your office that we shall submit the delegates for the special congress on October 26th 2013.
“We are aware that there has been submission of such delegates made on the October 14 2013, so we are informing your office to take that letter as null and void because it was never discussed by DIFA Berea Committee members,” the letter said.
The letter is signed by the Berea DIFA members: vice president, Moses Maliehe, members Tlotliso Mpholo, public relations officer, Teboho Maqalika, and Qekisi Qekisi.
DIFA Berea president, Pule, told this paper yesterday that he is the one who instructed their district administrator to submit names of delegates for the special congress.
“Yes, it is true that I’m the one who instructed our administrator to submit a list of delegates for the upcoming congress,” Pule said.
“Normally we have delegates consisting of the vice president, secretary and treasurer like in the previous congress and I did not know that appointing people would cause such havoc.”
He said the list does not include him as he will be at the congress as the executive committee member of the association. Pule said he was not aware the decision to appoint the delegates would cause friction among his colleagues from Berea.
“We discussed the names of the delegates before and I was not aware it would make my colleagues unhappy,” said Pule.
Lefa vice president, Lebohang Thotanyana, who is challenging Salemane Phafane for the association’s top job has also written to the Lefa secretary general protesting a number of issues that he feels could affect the outcome of the election.
“I once more wish to reiterate the following concerns,” the letter said.
“The fact that you have failed to convene a meeting of the National Executive Committee (NEC) to prepare and organise for the special congress as required by the Lefa constitution.
You have instead opted to put all logistics with a few members of the NEC. This in itself has dented the credibility of the planned election and it presupposes a predetermined outcome for the day,” the letter said.
“The delegates that will participate in the congress are not duly authorised official delegates as required by the current Lefa constitution as in some structures they were not appointed by the structure but individuals without proper authorisation.
An example is delegates of DIFA Berea, who were appointed by the DIFA president, who is also a national executive committee member and the delegates were appointed without the authorisation of his committee.
The letter also requested that the special congress to elect the president be held at a later date after a cooling period is allowed. It indicates that such an election cannot be held under the current constitution without any amendments.
The letter also requests the use of an independent body to prepare and oversee the election process given the level of interest of the national executive committee. It says the body should observe from delegates nomination to the actual election.
“I kindly request that you deal with my request and provide feedback by no later than 12:00 noon of October 23rd 2013, as failure to do shall leave me with no option, but to take further action,” the letter read.
