Elise Seignolle received the most votes of any candidate with 106 ©IBA

Ten independent directors have been elected to the Board of the International Boxing Association (IBA) at its Extraordinary Congress, with women topping the vote here at the Wow Hotel Istanbul.

The individual with the most votes was USA Boxing athlete representative Elise Seignolle with 106 votes, followed by Pearl Beverly Dlamini from Eswatini on 89 and Australian boxer Kristy Harris received 84 for third.

Harris is competing at the Women's World Boxing Championships here and is set to face Anamika from India in the under-50 kilograms round of 16.

Per the IBA's aim for equal representation, at least five of the 10 elected directors had to be women. 

Only three candidates could be elected per continent.

Ukrainian Boxing Federation President Volodymyr Prodyvus and Yousof Al-Kazim, President of the Qatar Boxing Federation, were then elected as the top European and Asian candidates with 78 and 71 votes, respectively.

Hungarian Boxing Association secretary general Zsuzsanna Tóth was elected sixth as the fourth woman and second European with 71 votes, followed by Marta Forcen Celaya of Spain as the third European, seventh individual elected and the fifth women.

New IBA Board members were elected today in Istanbul ©IBA
New IBA Board members were elected today in Istanbul ©IBA

Abdel Jaouad Belhaj, the President of the Moroccan Boxing Federation, was elected eighth as the second African candidate with 82 votes.

Filling up the last two spots were Jammalage Dian Gomes of Sri Lanka and Zhou Jinqiang of China who collected 69 votes each.

Spain's Felipe Martínez stood aside as a candidate to endorse Forcen Celaya; while Cameroon's Bertrand Magloire Mendouga also decided not to stand.

Didier Wicht from Switzerland, Stacha Balmat of Switzerland and Briton Umar Akhtar were all elected by acclamation to the Audit Committee.

IBA President Umar Kremlev was re-elected to another term lasting four years as he stood unopposed following Dutch Boxing Federation leader Boris van der Vorst being ruled ineligible to run by the Boxing Independent Integrity Unit (BIIU).

The BIIU banned five candidates - the others being Boxing New Zealand President Steve Hartley, USA Boxing executive director Mike McAtee, Swedish Boxing Federation President Per-Axel Sjöholm and Danish Boxing Association President Lars Brovil - from standing. 

They were deemed ineligible over "collaboration between candidates" and "electoral campaigning outside the electoral period"

Van der Vorst is now appealing the decision which rendered him ineligible to the Court of Arbitration for Sport.

The IBA Board consists of 18 members following governance reforms. 

As well as the 10 independent directors, the IBA President, heads of the five continental governing bodies and two representatives of the Athletes' Committee sit on the Board.