Fecofa: twist in the electoral process
The Fecofa electoral process has hit a twist after a FIFA letter set out how things should proceed
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The electoral process at the Congolese Football Association (Fecofa) is dragging on. Everything had been running smoothly to the published electoral timetable, but complications have arisen at the level of the national Leagues, the last stage before the election of the body's new Executive Committee.
First there was a postponement because of a financial problem. The elections scheduled for 3 April for the national youth football league, 4 April for the national women's football league and 5 April for the national football league were pushed back to 17, 18 and 19 April because several delegates (voters) had not received their plane tickets to travel to Kinshasa.
And just as the league elections were expected to go ahead on the new dates, the process was stalled by FIFA's intervention, following complaints CAF is said to have received.
Case files to be reviewed by a panel of FIFA legal experts
In a letter sent to Fecofa on 10 April, FIFA said it had noted that CAF had been approached by various candidates in the sub-delegate elections who apparently complained of contradictions between the decisions taken by the Electoral Commission and those of the Electoral Appeals Commission.
And since these complaints appear to reveal malfunctions within the two Commissions, FIFA and CAF feel obliged to act to head off possible irregularities in the process.
On that basis, FIFA and CAF have decided to offer independent legal support to the Normalisation Committee by appointing a panel of 4 legal experts, tasked with ensuring that electoral activity complies with Fecofa's statutes and that the process continues in an orderly, coordinated way. FIFA asked for copies of all correspondence containing complaints or disputes to be passed to this panel for review.
No cancellation of the process
Despite its intervention, FIFA is not cancelling the electoral process as a whole. As it made clear in its letter, the ongoing process was not being called into question.
Once all the cases have been reviewed, the process will indeed continue at the level of the national Leagues before reaching the Fecofa Executive Committee, where a new leadership team is expected to formally replace the one left by Constant Omari before the Normalisation Committee was installed. New dates for the remaining elections have still not been published.