Kevin Sunich

New­ly-elect­ed first vice-pres­i­dent of the Am­a­teur Box­ing As­so­ci­a­tion of T&T (ABATT) Reynold Cox, has dis­missed claims by for­mer na­tion­al mid­dleweight cham­pi­on Al­lan Fer­gu­son, that the vot­ing pro­ce­dure was not con­sti­tu­tion­al. Cox ex­plained that the as­so­ci­a­tion did not go against the bye-laws of the Am­a­teur In­ter­na­tion­al Box­ing As­so­ci­a­tion (AI­BA) by us­ing the show of hands method at the elec­tions of the an­nu­al gen­er­al meet­ing (AGM) held at the Po­lice Mess Hall, Long Cir­cu­lar Road, St James, on Sun­day.

Fer­gu­son, who was ini­tial­ly con­test­ing the pres­i­den­cy po­si­tion of the or­gan­i­sa­tion, said he with­drew af­ter he re­alised that the show of hands method was go­ing to be used. "The AI­BA con­sti­tu­tion clear­ly states that the elec­tion for pres­i­den­cy must be done by bal­lot and not by the show of hands. I will be writ­ing the in­ter­na­tion­al as­so­ci­a­tion, as well as the Min­istry of Sports and the Sports Com­pa­ny of T&T," said Fer­gu­son. How­ev­er, Cox said the ar­ti­cle Fer­gu­son is re­fer­ring to, has to do with the elec­tion of an AI­BA pres­i­dent.

Ar­ti­cle 27:3 of the gov­ern­ing body bye-laws states "Elec­tions will be con­duct­ed by se­cret bal­lot. Any oth­er de­ci­sion that re­quires a vote will be reached by a show of hands or by means of an elec­tron­ic count. If a show of hands does not re­sult in a clear ma­jor­i­ty in favour of a mo­tion, the vote will be tak­en by call­ing the roll, Mem­bers be­ing called in Eng­lish al­pha­bet­i­cal or­der." Cox fur­ther said Fer­gu­son knew all along that the ABATT con­sti­tu­tion, which was in 2007, stat­ed that the as­so­ci­a­tion could chose which sys­tem of vot­ing it de­sired to use.