Well, supposedly anyway.

Those within AIBA and those of us who have covered the embattled organisation closely in recent times can be forgiven for feeling a sense of déjà vu. After all, we have been here before.

Cast your mind back to June 2019. It is the day after the International Olympic Committee (IOC) rubber-stamped the suspension of AIBA as the Olympic governing body for the sport, and it is holding an Executive Committee meeting in a Geneva hotel.

During the meeting, the gravity of the IOC’s decision seems to - finally - have hit home, and AIBA calls an Extraordinary Congress for the following November to elect its new President following the departure of Gafur Rakhimov, who had been accused of involvement in heroin trafficking.

The Congress is also set to approve a host of much-needed statute changes, long demanded by the IOC, but ultimately AIBA decides more time is needed to overhaul its Constitution and the meeting is postponed until March 2020.

What followed is, clearly, not AIBA’s fault. The coronavirus pandemic has had a considerable impact on sports governance, with numerous elections postponed and term limits extended.

Yet, as others in a similar situation to AIBA have managed to negate this challenge by moving their elections, Congresses and meetings online, amateur boxing’s worldwide body has stalled and stumbled before reaching the same conclusion as everybody else.

Holding a remote election appeared to be the obvious solution to a coronavirus-enforced problem, but it took AIBA several months to come up with it.

The process which led to AIBA scheduling a virtual Presidential election, due to take place on December 12 and 13, is symptomatic of how slow the governance wheels at the organisation seem to turn.

This is also the case when it comes to governance reforms and a revamp of the organisation's Constitution, so it was not surprising to hear Thomas Bach admit the IOC was "very worried" by the lack of progress at AIBA last week.

"I can summarise that we are very worried about the lack of progress with regard to the governance reforms of AIBA," Bach said.

"There is talk of Presidential elections, but we do not see any progress about these governance reforms which are very important."

These reforms, considered crucial if AIBA’s Olympic status is to be restored in time for Paris 2024, have so far proved elusive.

Several groups and taskforces have been set up by AIBA to devise the necessary changes but the organisation has not moved far from where it started.

Coming up with statute alterations falls under the remit of the Reform Commission, established late last year. Initially it had been due to be led by François Carrard, the de-facto leader of sports governance in the Olympic Movement, before he was pressured into not taking the role by the IOC because of a conflict of interest which even AIBA must have been aware of.

AIBA has made little progress since. Sure, officials from the governing body have made promises but they have rarely been kept.

They have vowed to make the required alterations, but these have stalled amid bureaucracy and a self-damaging lack of consensus.

insidethegames understands proposals have been put to AIBA more than once, but have either fallen on deaf ears or have not been followed up.

There are some good, competent people within AIBA and its various Commissions, but they have struggled to have enough of an impact to improve the governance at the organisation, which has hardly been exemplary in the past.

This is an organisation which in the last 18 months has breached its own statutes on more than one occasion, failed to gain a quorum for a crucial Executive Committee meeting and seen its Interim President serve for far longer than planned after reversing a decision to stand down.

None of the above will have been lost on the IOC Monitoring Committee, led by Nenad Lalovic and which is tracking AIBA’s bid for reinstatement.

It was not so long ago, although it does feel an age, when Lalovic slammed AIBA’s lack of progress and said it needed to work much harder. There will be plenty who feel it has not heeded that call.

In crisis, however, comes opportunity, and that is certainly how AIBA is viewing the Presidential election and Extraordinary Congress in December.

Three candidates have so far thrown their hat into the ring for President - Asian Boxing Confederation head Anas Al Otaiba, Azerbaijani Executive Committee member Suleyman Mikayilov and honorary AIBA vice-president Domingo Solano of the Dominican Republic.

The list of contenders is likely to grow before the deadline of November 2. Russian Umar Kremlev - who last year offered to wipe AIBA’s debut but never fully explained where the money would come from - is widely expected to stand, while there are murmurings of at least one other.

To say the winner of the election will have a lot on their plate is the understatement of the century. 

As well as the statute changes and repairing its relations with the IOC, AIBA’s financial situation has not improved and there remain genuine concerns about its Olympic future.

But whoever does emerge as the long-awaited successor to Rakhimov should start with ensuring the mistakes of the past - and there have been plenty - are not repeated.