Tomorrow’s elective congress of the Namibia Football Association (NFA) will be a hotly contested two-horse race between Ranga Haikali and Johnny Johnson Doeseb, following the unceremonious withdrawal of Izak Fredericks and Mabos Vries from the association’s presidential race.

The congress is slated for tomorrow morning at the Safari Court Hotel in the capital. The Fifa-installed Normalisation Committee for the NFA made the announcement late yesterday that Vries and Fredericks had withdrawn their candidature from the presidential race, thus leaving Doeseb and Haikali as the only two contenders.

It was also announced that more withdrawals took place in other categories, including for the first and second vice-presidents positions as well as from the executive committee category’s initial list of nominees.
From the first vice-president list of nominees, Rudolph Haingura and Peter Ndjulu withdrew from the race, leaving Izak Fredericks and Michael Situde as the only competing candidates for that position, while Ndjulu, Fredericks and Nettie Cloete also withdrew their names for the position of second vice-president – leaving Situde and Haingura to go head to head.

Haingura also withdrew his name from the list of those running for executive committee positions and is joined on the way out of this contest by Fredericks.

Sources with close links to Football House in Katutura disclosed to this publication that the withdrawals of Vries and Fredericks were pre-planned and are aimed at giving Haikali the upper hand going into tomorrow’s decisive congress.

The grand plan behind the withdrawals, the source said, is to make sure Haikali strolls to victory unhindered as almost all the regions will turn their votes to him in the presidency race as opposed to Doeseb.  It is also alleged that in return for the “favour”, Team Haikali will make sure Fredericks emerges victorious as the first vice-president and that Haingura wins the second vice-presidency position. It is further rumoured that for his sacrifice, Vries could be “awarded” with the position of secretary general after congress.

The Normalisation Committee by the virtue of being appointed by Fifa served as the vetting committee and will tomorrow act as the NFA’s electoral body during the elections. The Normalisation Committee consists of chairperson Hilda Basson-Namundjebo, deputy chairperson Franco Cosmos, Vivienne Katjiuongua, Gaby Ahrens and Matti Mwandingi.
-ohembapu@nepc.com.na