Blatter says elections need competition, but stability is important too

 “Perhaps an election should have different candidates, but this situation (about elections having a sole candidate) also exists in the political entities,” argued Blatter, during an exclusive InsideWorldFootball interview.

“[But] generally not, because in politics you have an opposition party and somebody has to challenge.”

The Swiss, who was at the recent CAF congress in Morocco, where Cameroonian Issa Hayatou was elected, without opposition, to a seventh four-year term, was not forgetful of the fact that he was also elected unopposed at the 2011 FIFA Congress in Zurich.

This was a consequence of the withdrawal of Qatari Mohamed Bin Hammam, the former president of the Asian Football Confederation (AFC) from the race. Bin Hammam has since received a life ban from football.

The lack of an opponent, for Blatter, in that election, was strongly criticised in several quarters.

“If there is no other candidate [for the CAF presidency], then there would be an election, in the same way that I was elected [in 2011],” Blatter said.

“But the president of UEFA (Michel Platini) was re-elected by applause, and the president of CONMEBOL has been elected for years and years… I think that it is also a question of stability (for the organisation) and the personality of whoever is at the head of the organisation.”

Reacting to the lack of opposition for Hayatou at the CAF election, following the failed bid of Jacques Anouma, a member of the FIFA executive committee, to overturn the change to CAF’s presidential eligibility rules, at the Court of Arbitration for Sport, Blatter claimed Anouma’s subsequent ineligibility should not have ended the possibility of a contest.

“You would have expected that someone in the CAF executive committee (who, according to the existing CAF statutes, are the only ones qualified to contest for the presidency) would have had the courage to challenge Mr Hayatou.

“The decision of CAS was not on whether Mr Anouma could be a candidate for the [CAF presidential] elections or not. It was about whether the CAF congress was sovereign and had the authority to take the decision [to change its presidential election eligibility statutes].”

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