Despite the troubles faced by amateur boxing's global governing body for years - perhaps even decades - and the position being described by some as a poisoned chalice, seven candidates have entered the running to succeed Gafur Rakhimov as the head of the embattled Federation.

AIBA Interim President Mohamed Moustahsane, Asian Boxing Confederation head Anas Al Otaiba, Russia's Umar Kremlev, Azerbaijan's Suleyman Mikayilov, Dominican Republic's Domingo Solano, Germany's Ramie Al-Masri and Boris van der Vorst, the President of the Dutch Boxing Federation, are those to have thrown their hat into the ring.

The winner of the virtual vote - being overseen by remote election specialists Lumi, the British-based company which has been an ever-present for those of us covering the Olympic Movement during the pandemic - will complete the term of Rakhimov, who stood down in March of last year because of allegations he was involved in heroin trafficking. He denies wrongdoing.

Should all seven make the start line, the candidate with the least votes will be eliminated after each round, unless someone secures the absolute majority required for victory.

There could be as many as seven ballots if there is not a winner in the first round, but insidethegames has learned the Congress will not be streamed and a full breakdown of the votes is, therefore, not likely to be revealed until considerably after the vote. So much for a new transparent AIBA.

The behind-closed-doors election will follow a campaign which has lacked the public mudslinging and skullduggery that is usually omnipresent in the build-up to elections in any industry or sector.

This pre-vote trait has instead taken place in the background. This is a campaign that has very much been conducted in the shadows.

A statement from the AIBA Election Committee chairman Bernhard Welten late last month confirmed what was already apparent. It referred to "reports of mass emails containing rumours and allegations being forwarded by a few candidates' campaign managers" and called on those running in the election to "respect the applicable AIBA regulations and norms of democracy".

Prior to and since the statement, it is thought the Committee has been inundated with messages, complaints and accusations as part of a smear campaign which almost every candidate has seemingly been subjected to in one way or another.

Privately it has been a different story, but publicly there has not been much campaigning from over half of the packed field.

Just two have held press conferences. Kremlev did so to announce his Presidential bid, while Mikayilov staged a briefing yesterday.

Van der Vorst has been the most active and vociferous, but it appears the Dutchman's efforts may be in vain as he is not expected to garner enough support to win the election.

At the time of writing, Moustahsane, AIBA Interim President for over 18 months, has not even bothered to release a manifesto. Several attempts to contact the Moroccan by insidethegames have gone unanswered.

Granted, the target audience should be the electorate and not the media, and there are other, more surreptitious ways of getting ahead of your arrivals.

But the press is regularly a useful tool used by candidates to disseminate their messages and pre-election pledges, most of which they will almost certainly fail to keep.

The lead-up to the vote has not been short of controversy, however. As insidethegames has revealed, there have been allegations of ethics and election rule breaches against Solano - the National Federation that nominated him, the Dominican Republic, has been suspended amid allegations of corruption -  and Moustahsane, while the International Olympic Committee (IOC) has implicitly raised concerns against certain candidates.

The IOC has exhibited a dismissive attitude towards AIBA since it suspended the troubled Federation as the Olympic governing body for the sport in June 2019 and put its flailing bid for reinstatement very much on the backburner, largely as it is dealing with more pressing matters, such as organising the first Olympic Games to be postponed.

Yet it has still had time to issue sporadic warnings to AIBA and has also relayed the concerns it has with unnamed candidates to the panel overseeing the election, although it is not difficult to figure out who it is referring to.

Its constant references to the IOC Inquiry Commission report, which directly names both Moustahsane and Kremlev, have made that pretty clear.

insidethegames has been told the IOC is not overjoyed with any of the candidates and there is a suggestion that the winner will be immaterial to AIBA's attempt at regaining its Olympic status in time for Paris 2024.

"It is probably too little, too late," an official within AIBA told me recently.

Yet, put simply, someone has to win. The impasse that has enveloped and gripped AIBA under Interim President Moustahsane has to end, for the sake of the boxers across the world who have been impacted by the never-ending crisis at the organisation.

With just two days to go until the election, Al Otaiba, Kremlev and Mikayilov are considered the frontrunners. Van der Vorst is doing better than expected at this stage, while Al-Masri and Solano are candidates in name only and are unlikely to trouble the scorers.

Some feel the fact all seven are set to be on the ballot box come Saturday is a minor miracle, given the allegations that have arisen in recent weeks.

It seems a similar divine intervention will be needed if AIBA is to be welcomed back by the IOC any time soon.