Town
Julian Drew
Few election campaigns draw more international interest and none are subject to greater conjecture than the contest for the Olympic Games. Experts around the globe deliberate over the influence of various International Olympic Committee (IOC) members and speculate about various bloc votes.
At the end of the day, however, speculation is all it will remain because no organisation is more secretive than the IOC and nobody, not even other members, know exactly how each IOC member votes.
The IOC currently has 111 members but only 109 can participate in the vote. IOC president Juan Antonio Samaranch does not vote unless there is a tie in which case he has the casting vote. Only three members from a country with a candidate city are allowed to vote.
Cape Town believes it has the African bloc firmly behind it although Africa has long been polarised along English, French and Arabic-speaking lines.
The fact that at least one of the 19 African members who received Sam Ramsamy’s surprisingly naive offer to take their wives to Lausanne saw fit to complain to the IOC indicates that not all of them are backing Cape Town.
Buenos Aires too might like to think it can count on Latin American votes but Brazil’s International Football Federation president, Joao Havelange, has stated publicly that the Games should go to Europe.
Even the most influential IOC member of all cannot guarantee success for a city.
IOC president Juan Antonio Samaranch backed Athens for 1996 and Beijing for 2000 which could be bad news for Athens – believed to be his choice for 2004. The other main power-broker is Primo Nebiolo, president of the International Amateur Athletics Federation. Nebiolo has gone to extraordinary lengths to promote Rome’s cause but appears to have angered more people than he has impressed with his underhand tactics.
“Talk of bloc votes and personal influence is overestimated. It’s very much an individual thing which is difficult to gauge,” says one IOC insider about the voting.
In order to survive the first round Cape Town needs at least 22 votes. With perhaps 15 African votes, a couple each from Australasia, the Americas and Asia along with some of those countries who intend bidding in 2008 – London, Paris, the Ruhr region of Germany, Beijing, Osaka and Toronto have shown interest so far and the African factor is so strong that they would rather remove it now – Cape Town should muster enough votes.
If, as expected, Buenos Aires and Stockholm are eliminated first, Cape Town stands a good chance of picking up most of their votes, which could see it put up a strong challenge to the two favourites, Athens and Rome. This will be the toughest hurdle for Cape Town and if can negotiate this one it can go all the way.
Such is the bitter rivalry between these two cities after the war of words at the world athletics championships last month that Cape Town could pick up the majority of votes that would go begging after this round. And in the final analysis, that means there is a very real chance of the Olympic Games coming to Africa for the very first time when Juan Antonio Samaranch opens the little brown envelope this evening (Friday) containing the name of the winning city.