The Brazilian Swimming Federation will hold the next iteration of its presidential elections on February 28, after multiple delays since the original elections last March.
An almost full year of delays came from a variety of factors. Originally, the CBDA named Thiago Pereira as the president of its Athletes Commission. That would give Pereira a vote on behalf of the Athletes Commission in the federation’s presidential elections, scheduled for March 18, 2017. But Pereira himself was not elected to that position, and a judge annulled Pereira’s status as Athlete’s Commission President and ordered that the elections be suspended.
Athletes then voted for Leonardo de Deus to take the position, and elections were officially set for June 9.
Then, one day before those elections, news broke that FINA, the international swimming federation, would refuse to recognize the results of the election based on issues it had with the CBDA constitution. FINA wouldn’t answer our requests about what specific issues it had with the Brazilian federation’s policies.
The CBDA elected Miguel Cagnoni as president one day later, but FINA still refused to recognize the result. From there, FINA and the CBDA resolved their differences, and elections were set for December 20, per BestSwimming.br, a Brazilian news site. But then candidate Ricardo Babosa filed a lawsuit to suspend the election on the grounds that the new election date wasn’t announced with enough time to prepare.
That pushed back the election to February 28, as decided by another judge.
The full timeline of the election delays so far:
- March 2017: Athlete’s Commission annulled, elections suspended
- May 2017: De Deus elected as Athlete’s Commission rep, elections set for June 9
- June 2017: FINA will refuse to recognize results of election
- June 2017: Miguel Cagnoni elected
- December 2017: Elections set for Dec. 20, but a candidate files suit for lack of preparation time
- February 2018: Elections officially set for Feb. 28
