FIFA’s insistence on impeached Elections Code kicks off storm in Kenya

Chairperson of FKF Electoral Board Kentice Tikolo after announcing the FKF Elections road map at Kasarani, Nairobi, yesterday. [Jonah Onyango, Standard]

The announcement yesterday of new dates of stalled Football Kenya Federation by FKF Elections Board has touched off a fresh round of controversy with a section of aggrieved parties saying they “reject in toto the roadmap” provided.

The roadmap, which the Board came up with citing a letter by the world football governing body Fifa dated August 5, will culminate in national elections on October 17.

The Board, chaired by Kentice Tikolo, said the polls will start with county polls on September 19. The Board said: “As advised by Fifa, the elections will be carried out in accordance with the FKF statutes and Electoral Code currently in force, and/or the Fifa statutes/guidelines, where applicable.”

In the Fifa letter, Fifa ordered FKF to conduct the elections a fresh as well as submit a roadmap on the stalled elections to the Zurich-based body.

The exercise was thrown into jeopardy after the Sports Disputes Tribunal (SDT) twice nullified the intended FKF elections for violating the Fifa Standard Electoral Code and section 46 (6) as read with Paragraph (d) of the Second Schedule to the Sports Act and Article 81 of the Constitution of Kenya 2010.

Reacting to the move by the Board, FKF presidential aspirant Lordvick Aduda said it was regrettable that the elections Board had allowed itself to be used to advance an illegality and act in contempt of the Sports Tribunal.

“There is a ruling in place rendered by a competent Sports Tribunal dated March 17 and which has not been vacated. That ruling clearly impeached the purported Electoral Code they now claim is still in force.

“Section 4 of the Elections Code was impeached, therefore, it’s contemptuous for anyone to purport to come up with the roadmap without engaging the stakeholders on how to domesticate an agreeable code, particularly, with respect to member clubs, who were omitted from the initial register and whose appeal culminated in the nullification of the intended election.

“Failure of which the same clubs will head back to the Tribunal because their rights are being violated,” Aduda said.

In a statement on behalf of a section of stakeholders, former FKF president Sam Nyamweya said it was erroneous and a display of impunity for the Elections Board to cite a letter not addressed to it when it is obvious they were receiving instructions from the incumbents.  

“The letter by Mosengo-Omba is not addressed to the Elections Board. It is addressed to FKF CEO, who should know where to start in view of the SDT 3&5 ruling on March 17. Therefore, the FKF Electoral Board and the Chairperson of the Board cannot derive a cause of action on the basis of this letter.

 “For a fresh FKF electoral process to commence on the right footing, such a process should include a comprehensive review of Section Four of the FKF Electoral Code 2020 by the stakeholders.

“Such a process should generate a new all-inclusive voter register that must include all the FKF Sub Branch clubs, which have been transformed to Counties.

The statement added: “Such a register should weed out ghost and brief case clubs. The register should only have authentic clubs and genuine club officials and not impostors.”

“Therefore, the FKF Electoral Board has no statutory powers to originate, develop, disseminate the FKF Electoral Roadmap. It is unethical and erroneous for the Chairperson of the Board to claim that the directives were directed to them.”

There had been hope that the high-stakes FKF elections would be restarted after Fifa Chief Member Associations Officer Véron Mosengo-Omba wrote on March 25 calling for a meeting “for the sake of peace” with the Kenyan Government and all the relevant stakeholders when the Sports Tribunal nullified the intended elections a second time on March 17.

However, it appears Mosengo-Omba has abandoned the plan, instead he has asked FKF to submit a roadmap without calling for the stakeholder engagement.

In the letter dated August 5 Mosengo-Omba said: “For the sake of good order and to guarantee a peaceful context, we encourage FKF to start as a whole the electoral process (i.e. from branches to national level).

He added: “We would like to underline that Fifa will closely monitor the situation. As a result, we kindly ask FKF to submit an electoral roadmap as soon as it can.”