Miss Teen eliminations strangely secretive

MBABANE- Confusion seems to be surrounding the Miss Teen 2013/14 beauty pageant.

The organisers of the event have failed to release to the media names of the 12 girls who have made it to the elimination stage. After conducting auditions in all four regions, the organisers were expected to choose 12 girls who will battle it out for the title but to date; they have not been forthcoming with the information. National beauty pageants are supposed to be done publicly, such that even the regional eliminations are supposed to be publicised.

Publicly

Miss Teen Spokesperson Lungile Mdluli said they were still waiting to meet with the girls before they could be able to publicly announce those who had made it to the elimination stage. Asked on what they were looking for when choosing the girls, she asked to be called later. When contacted later on, her phone was off.

The director of the pageant, Sinotsile Vilane said she did not have the names of the girls who had made it to the elimination stage, as they were still with Mdluli. She noted that they were planning on releasing the names of the girls after meeting with all of them.
“I do not have the list right now. We did have a meeting and chose the 12 who will be battling it out for the Miss Teen 2013/14 title,” Vilane said.
Vilane said when choosing the Miss Teen hopefuls they looked at  beauty, behaviour, cleanliness or neatness, brains, future ambition of the girls. She said they had 63 entries where they chose the 12 girls.

“We contacted all the parents on each girl’s progress at school and behaviour in general. We are very particular about good behaviour. We will be working closely with parents and schools to determine how these children behave and carry themselves,” she said.

Prizes

Asked on the prizes, Vilane said they were hoping one of them would be a scholarship for the beauty queen to study Information Technology. “If all goes well with the sponsorship, we will make sure that every contestant takes home a prize. Everything will be dependent on our sponsors,” Vilane said. She said the event was scheduled for the first week of December when all the girls were done with their end of year exams, as they did not want to disturb their study schedule.

Vilane noted that sponsors were coming through though they had not formalised anything with them. The only sponsor she mentioned was Standard Traders, who offered accommodation for the contestants at Lidwala Lodge.

When sought for comment, President of the Swaziland Beauty Pageant Tony Dlamini said he was still to meet with the organisers of the pageant to get clarification on the issue and was actually surprised the elimination process had even taken place.

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