Miss Independence flops in Francistown
Shingirai Madondo | Friday October 4, 2013 12:54
A woman from the audience said she has never attended such a poorly organised beauty pageant like the Miss Independence Francistown.
She charged that the deserving girls have been deliberately sidelined from making it to the top five because the show was not to choose the most beautiful contestant.
'If the girls had money, they should have gone to court like the aggrieved beauties who took part in the Miss Universe Botswana pageant because this is daylight robbery,' she said.
Some of the Miss Universe Botswana contestants have approached the Gaborone High Court challenging the crowing of Tsaone Macheng. The disgruntled contestants have argued that Macheng did not win fairly.
In Francistown, some Miss Independence contestants here have argued that the winner of the 2013 edition does not have the height of a model. 'A model should be tall but not too tall or short. But the winners of the Miss Independence Francistown fell far short of the simple average height of a model,' said one contestant who refused to be named.
Industry standards require models to be tall. Elite, a top-modelling agency in Botswana specifies height requirements for women to be between 5 feet 8 inches (172.72 centimetres) and 5 feet 11 inches (180.34cm). Besides the controversy of the contestants, the organisers had to contend with unfulfilled promises. It was widely publicised that Mapetla (Thabo Ntirang) will headline the show but he was nowhere to be found.
The event was expected to start at 7pm on Saturday, butit kicked off two hours later and more delays followed with the sound system failing at least twice. For being the most beautiful girl, the newly crowned queen received nothing. Organisers of the pageant ma no announcement of her prize for winning the competition. One of the event organisers who was only identified as Martin refused to talk to Showbiz.