BOKA affiliate smells a rat
Ryushin- kan Karate Do Botswana raises alarm over exclusion from elections
As the Botswana Karate Association ( BOKA) elections gets even closer, the boardroom chaos has intensified with presidential hopeful Keorapetse Dube omitted from the election nominees list. Dube who is the chief instructor of Ryushin- kan Karate Do Botswana federation has in the past week complained about the association’s failure to invite his federation to the elections. Though he went ahead and registered for elections, when BOKA released the list of nominees this week his name was not included. In addition, BOKA is yet to respond to Dube’s inquiries on why he wasn’t invited to the elections. Sensei Dube together with Moses Tubego have expressed interest to contest for the presidency and secretary general positions respectively.
“I am yet to get any formal communication from BOKA despite the fact that it’s been a while since I wrote to them. I believe since they have seen my correspondence they should be coming out clear to explain to me why we didn’t get the invitation to elections or maybe tell me that I don’t qualify to stand for elections but they are just quiet. Now it seems like we are sidelined or we don’t have the rights to take part in the elections but all along we have been good members and paying affiliation fees, which BOKA has been taking all along,” said Dube.
When reached for comment BOKA spokesperson Isaiah Ramontshonyana explained the constitution. “Constitutionally, members who are on probation do not have voting rights. As a member on probation they can’t nominate themselves for elections rather if they wanted to contest the elections they could have asked a full member of BOKA to nominate them. They all know this, for example our current treasurer is not a karateka but since there was belief that he can lead us somewhere considering his credentials, one federation nominated him. So this issue of Ryushin- kan can be solved at the general council since it’s them who have the powers to grant them full membership. As BOKA, we are only responsible for provisional membership,” said Ramontshonyana.
According to the BOKA constitution Article 5.2.10, provisional members do not have voting rights at general meetings and Clause 5.2.11 further says provisional membership granted by the executive committee can only be ratified into full status by the general assembly. However, it is not yet clear on how Ryushin- Kan ended up being provisional members last year since they argue they have been members of BOKA since 2013.
Efforts to solicit a comment from BNSC, who are facilitators of BOKA elections, proved futile since their phones rang unanswered.
Tshepo Bathai is defending his presidential seat against Mpho Bakwadi while Samuel Dire is unopposed for vice president administration position. Union Kgafela and David Hubona will slug it out for vice president technical while Boikanyo Baleseng and Kutlwano Mokokomani vie for the treasurer general post. Karabo Samuel is unopposed for secretary general while Bose Caiphus and Ellen Roberts are in forvice secretary general position. Isaiah Ramontshonyana will defend his position of publicity secretary against Jerry Ditlhong.