Outgoing WPRFU president Thelo Wakefield (Grant Pitcher/Gallo)
Monday night’s elections for the Western Province Rugby Football Union (WPRFU) presidency are in danger of not taking place thanks to an urgent court interdict.
Ronald Bantom, who was due to run as a candidate for vice-president on Monday night, has applied to the high court to put a stop to the elections.
He has the support of presidential candidate Zelt Marais, who is understood to have co-signed the affidavit.
Outgoing WPRFU president Thelo Wakefield announced last week that Bantom had been suspended from standing in the elections due to the fact that he had evaded a disciplinary hearing relating to an incident from August, 2017 when he had a spat with Jessie Claasen of the Vuka Rugby development programme.
In December last year, Bantom was again involved in a public spat, this time at the Cape Town Sevens where Claasen and then-WPRFU vice-president Gerald Njengele engaged in an altercation that was reportedly racist in nature.
Bantom’s suspension, though, relates back to the August, 2017 incident.
While the timing of Wakefield’s renewed interest in that disciplinary process was curious, it is understood that Bantom evaded calls to sit before lawyers in an effort to move forward with the process.
It was that non-compliance that gave Wakefield the ammunition to suspend Bantom, who is now fighting back.
Wakefield was contacted on Monday to find out whether Monday night’s AGM would go ahead given the latest developments.
“Why would you ask me that when the AGM is tonight?” Wakefield said.
When informed that, on our information, two standing candidates (Bantom and Marais) had moved to have the elections postponed, Wakefield opted to keep his distance.
“This matter is with the high court … the judge must decide.”
The high court is expected to rule on the interdict at 15:00, while the AGM was expected to get underway at 19:30.
Attempts were made to contact Marais. — Sport24