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Two organised campaigns, a disputed 24-name list and the Panel’s admission that no formal vetting was applied to the 53 nominees are shaping the Mowbray Cemetery Board election, raising questions ahead of the August 23 Special General Meeting.
By ANWAR OMAR
Two organised efforts to influence the Mowbray Muslim Cemetery Board election on Sunday, August 23 have surfaced days before the Special General Meeting (SGM), alongside questions over whether the Panel of Independent Convenors verified the professional credentials it published for all 53 nominees.
On Friday morning, the Panel’s chairperson addressed several of these questions directly in a radio interview.
An 11-person organised slate
A group calling itself Deeply Concerned Members (DCM) has published a website naming an 11-candidate slate. The site includes videos setting out the group’s views on historical developments, financial matters, and what it describes as lapses in governance. It outlines a platform built around holding an overdue annual general meeting (AGM), presenting audited financials and bank statements, and commitments around burial fees and preventing commercialisation of the cemetery.
The group says it has no affiliation with the previous Board or Panel, and states that the 2020 constitutional amendment was unlawfully adopted. The slate draws several candidates from a single family connected to the litigation that produced this election.
A truncated list circulating under an official banner
A document listing only 24 of the 53 eligible nominees has circulated widely on Facebook and WhatsApp, and is attributed by DCM to the Mowbray Cemetery’s official WhatsApp channel.
It presents itself as “THE LIST OF CANDIDATES”, with no indication it represents fewer than half the field. Of the 24 names, 11 carry an explicit MJC affiliation or a connection to the outgoing Board’s “current team” in their own published bios. The remainder are presented without any stated institutional tie.
None of the candidates on the DCM slate appears in this truncated list of 24. DCM has publicly disputed the document, stating the Panel manages the full 53-nominee process via mcbelections.co.za. Muslim Views has independently confirmed that at least four candidates on the list have personally shared it on their own Facebook pages.
This issue was not raised in a radio interview on the morning of Friday, August 21, with the Panel’s chairperson, Igshaan Higgins, and remains unaddressed.
A judicial connection, now confirmed by the Panel
A supporter of candidate Da Silva Mauro Nunes Mendes posted campaign material describing him as independent, with no ties to the Cemetery’s previous management. As previously reported, Da Silva is the husband of Judge Gayaat Salie, who handed down the August 4 and 5, 2026, rulings before the case was reallocated to Judge Fortuin on August 18. The post supporting Da Silva does not mention this.
Speaking during the same radio interview on Friday, Panel chairperson Higgins confirmed it directly.
“Da Silva’s husband is actually a nominee, but that’s got absolutely nothing to do with the judge. That person was not nominated by the judge; he was nominated by other parties,” Higgins said.
He explained the case was reallocated because Judge da Silva Salie was possibly on urgent duty and busy.
Asked whether this related to a possible conflict of interest, he said, “I don’t think it was necessarily that specific reason, but in hindsight maybe it’s a good thing that that was the case.”
He added that had the earlier 22-candidate shortlist still applied, and the judge’s husband been included while another candidate was excluded, “it would have been a big problem,” but, according to him, this did not arise since “no candidate was excluded.”
Panel confirms no formal vetting was applied
Higgins also addressed the concern raised by this publication over a corrected inaccuracy in a candidate’s published profile. Asked how the Panel arrived at 53 eligible candidates, he said, “we didn’t have a proper vetting process, or there wasn’t enough time for a proper vetting process.” Excluding any nominee without that process risked unfairly prejudicing them, he explained.
“So then when we realised there’s only like, you know, 50 odd people, so we might as well just put everybody on the list,” he said, adding the Panel took itself out of that process entirely, leaving the choice of 11 board members to “the Muslim public.” This confirms, in the Panel’s own words, that no independent verification process was applied to any of the 53 published profiles.
Panel says Sunday is election only
Higgins confirmed Sunday’s SGM is strictly an election, with no agenda, speeches, or financial disclosure. He acknowledged direct queries from members about financial transparency, but said that is not the mandate of the Panel, and that finances and the mortuary issue fall to the incoming board.
Notably, this sits alongside a standing court order requiring the Board to deliver financial records to the Panel at least 48 hours before the SGM, a deadline which was today, Friday, August 21, at 10am, which Higgins did not mention and which remains unconfirmed as yet.
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The significance of these developments
Taken together, a reform slate, a disputed truncated list actively shared by some it favours, and a campaign omitting a judicial connection the Panel chairperson has now confirmed are all shaping how members understand their choices.
The Panel’s own confirmation that no formal vetting was applied means members voting on published biographies do so without assurance the material is accurate. The truncated list compounds this by narrowing the field without disclosure, a matter the Panel has not addressed. And a campaign presenting a candidate as free of ties while omitting a marriage to the judge who handed down the earlier rulings, now confirmed by the Panel chairperson himself, raises its own question about how “free and fair” the elections will be.
The way forward
Beyond Sunday, the episode points to a question that the incoming Board will need to answer from its inception: whether the transparency and accountability the community has been pressing for, through calls for an AGM and proper financial oversight, will be practised by those now stepping into office, or whether it remains something imposed on institutions from outside rather than upheld from within.
Muslim Views will continue to report on any response received from the Panel, and on any further developments, as the SGM approaches.
- This article was amended at 15:58 on August 21, 2026 to reflect that the Board was required to deliver the financial statements to the Panel and not to the members, as stated previously.
