Around 11,161 eligible voters will use their right to elect their representatives in the Lahore Bar Association (LBA) Elections 2012-13 today (Friday). Around 2,600 voters were declared ineligible because of their failure to renew their bar membership until October 2011. According to LBA Election Board Chairman Akbar Ali Shad, polling will be held at session courts from 9am to 5pm with an interval from 1pm to 2pm for lunch and Friday prayers. Talking to Pakistan Today, a LBA voter said that although bar elections were unpredictable but presidential candidate Nauman Qureshi had a strong chance of winning because of backing of PPP lawyers, Asma Jahangir, Punjab Governor Latif Khosa and major bar associations. Nauman is son of veteran lawyer Hukan Qureshi whom LHC CJ Azmat Saeed declared as his mentor and remains active in the lawyers’ community despite being 82 years of age.
Nauman will compete against Chaudhry Zulfiqar who was backed by Hamid Khan’s Professional Group and Amir Iqbal Basharat, who might have split voters on his side besides those people who were tired of the tussle between the two main groups. Shad said that 11 polling booths have been established at courtrooms where giant LCDs will be installed for showing vote counting by the election board. Many candidates were contesting for slots of vice presidents, secretaries, joint secretary and finance secretary on basis of ‘biradarism’ and ‘clan’ basis. Faiz Khokhar, Shahzad Hassan, Javed Bashir, Ubaidur Rehman and Nasreen Ijaz were running for two vice president seats while Shazaib Masood and Riaz Bhatti were contesting for vice president of the Model Town Bar.
Nadeem Chaudhry, Jawad Gill, Qadir Ranjha, Asad Zaidi and Waheed Awan were running for two seats of bar secretary. Nisar Ahmed and Saima Malik were competing for slot of joint secretary and Fazaila Rana and Liaqat Awan were running for finance secretary. Sheikh Amir and Waqar Baig were running for library secretary. Around 11 members of the executive committee, including one for the Model Town Bar, have already been elected using a method of draw among candidates.
