It was Deja Vu all over again for incumbent Maclean Letshwiti and Tebogo Sebego as a rerun was needed to separate them during the just ended Botswana Football Association (BFA) National Executive Committee (NEC) elections.
In a scene reminiscent of the 2016 BFA presidential elections, it was eventually Letshwiti who emerged the winner when the two clashed in a BFA presidential election.
It was an historic win as for the first time in the history of Botswana football, an incumbent managed to defend his presidential title to serve two consecutively terms.
Since first locking horns in 2016, the battles between Letshwiti and Sebego had been interesting, and this one was no different.
In the first round of the vote, Letshwiti slightly edged off Sebego, gaining 32 votes to Sebego’s 28. The win was however not enough to give the incumbent an outright win.
According to the BFA electoral code, a presidential candidate needs to win 70% of the vote or 43 of the 60 votes in the first round to be declared an outright winner.
In the re-run Letshwiti ‘stole’ one vote from Sebego to increase his votes tally to 33 against Sebego’s 27, giving him just enough votes to defend his seat. As it stands in a re-run, a presidential candidate has to get more than 50% of the vote to win.
In other results, 1st Vice president Pelotshweu Motlogelwa retained his position after beating Maokaneng Bontshetse by a single vote. He garnered 29 votes to Bontshetse’s 28, while Ngele managed a paltry 2 votes.
In the 2nd Vice President race, Masego Nchingane beat Senki Sesinyi by 3 votes to retain his position in the BFA NEC. Maokaneng won 26 votes while Sesinyi and Solomon Ramochotlhwane got 23 and 11 votes respectively.
Another re-run rose in the female representative position where an independent candidate, Lobito Ncube, ran neck and neck with Itsholeng Dasang of team Sebego.
In the first round, the two were tied at 24 votes each. Ncube however upped an ante in the rerun and garnered a massive 38 against Disang’s 22 votes.
The third and last rerun was in the race for the third Ordinary member position and it pitted Kesego Okie against Alec Monyake.
After being tied at 25 votes in the first vote, the two tied again in the second vote with 30 votes each, leading to a second rerun between them.
Monyake however stole the march on Okie in the third round as he managed to get 32 votes to Okie’s 23, with another 5 delegates not casting a vote.