ASPIRING Zimbabwe Football Association (Zifa) president Temba Mliswa has withdrawn his application challenging the decision by the electoral committee to disqualify him from participating in the elections set for Saturday.
The State and the defence representing Mliswa consented to the withdrawal on the reason that the application was filed out of time.
Mliswa is one of five candidates that were disqualified after falling short of the association’s eligibility criteria.
He was challenging the election process as well as the validity and legitimacy of the new Zifa statutes which will be used to run the upcoming polls.
The matter was transferred to Harare from Bulawayo on the reason that High Court judge Justice Tawanda Chitapi was presiding on a similar case where Yadah Stars boss Walter Magaya is also challenging the holding of the elections.
Mliswa was seeking to stop the elections set for this Saturday in Harare arguing that the statutes being used to run the process were defective.
Through his legal representatives, Musindo Hungwe, Mliswa had cited Zifa as the first respondent and the Sports and Recreation Commission as well as the Minister of Sports, Recreation, Arts and Culture as second and third respondents, respectively.
Mliswa argued the Zifa Congress that voted for constitutional amendments last October had no mandate to do so since its term of office had expired; hence the process was null and void.
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He further argued the Zifa Congress delegates who met at the annual general meeting of the first respondent on October 18 2024 and passed the resolution to adopt the amended Zifa constitution was devoid of authority to so act by virtue of some of the congress delegates’ terms of office having expired in the period preceding the annual general meeting. He said the amended Zifa constitution, having been adopted by a body lacking in requisite mandate and authority, was a product of grossly flawed and irregular proceedings and therefore a legal nullity.
"The second respondent (Zifa acting chairperson) assented to and adopted the amended Zifa constitution on the 7th of November 2024 in spite of the lack of authority or mandate regarding the congress delegates of the first respondent and thus adopted a constitution that was a product of a grossly flawed process, which adoption is in that score equally a legal nullity and ought to be vacated.
"The subsequent electoral processes instigated by the first respondent through the Zifa Normalisation Committee pursuant to a constitution that was irregularly adopted is equally flawed, as they is premised on a constitution whose existence is a legal nullity by dint of having been adopted by a body lacking the requisite authority and mandate," Mliswa submitted.
The politician had sought the nullification of all resolutions purportedly passed at the Zifa annual general meeting of October 18 2024, including but not limited to the nullification of the resolution to adopt the current amended Zifa constitution, nullification of the subsequent assent and adoption of the amended Zifa constitution by the second respondent on November 7 2024.
He also sought the nullification of all the electoral processes of Zifa that followed the purported adoption of the amended Zifa constitution and which have been instigated and carried out in terms of the same.
Mliswa had also sought an order directing the first respondent to first cause the regulation of the structures of its affiliates that feed members who constitute the congress delegates of the first respondent at the Zifa annual general meeting and thereafter cause the convening of an annual general meeting for the proper adoption of the amended Zifa constitution.
