Pakistan's Olympic family to elect new chief on Dec 30

Pakistan's Olympic family will go for voting on December 30 in Lahore to elect the new president of the Pakistan Olympic Association (POA).

As many as 121 voters will go to elect the president for the next four years.

As per rules, Olympic federations have three votes each while non-Olympic federations have two votes each. The POA have also allotted three votes to squash, baseball and softball federations as these disciplines have been included in the 2028 Los Angeles Olympics. However, this is subject to approval from the International Olympic Committee (IOC).

If IOC gives green signal to the POA, then 121 voters will cast their votes to elect the president, otherwise 118 voters will go for voting.

There are 26 Olympic federations and it means 78 voters from this section will go to cast their votes. These federations include: archery, badminton, basketball, baseball, boxing, equestrian, fencing, golf, gymnastics, handball, hockey, judo, rowing, rugby, sailing, shooting, softball, squash, swimming, table tennis, taekwondo, tennis, volleyball, weightlifting, winter sports and wrestling.

Judo has become part of the general after more than a decade. POA had ceased to own Pakistan Judo Federation (PJF) over some technical issues after it had sided the then parallel POA which had the support of the state.

Following some constructive dialogue and back door diplomacy eventually PJF was granted the right to re-enter the Olympic family during the POA general council meeting held at Lahore on November 30.

It’s a huge breakthrough as judo has done good job as a federation during the past few years.

On the other hand, there are five non-Olympic federations including bodybuilding, kabaddi, karate, tug-of-war and wushu which will have two votes each.

In every federation, the nomination of a woman voter is compulsory.

The POA Athletes Commission, chaired by the country’s seasoned wrestler Mohammad Inam, will have two votes, also one woman.

The provincial Olympic associations including Balochistan Olympic Association, KP Olympic Association, Sindh Olympic Association, Punjab Olympic Association and Islamabad Olympic Association have one vote each.

Army, Navy, Pakistan Air Force (PAF), Police, WAPDA, Railways and Higher Education Commission (HEC) have also one vote each.

The POA chief Syed Mohammad Abid Qadri Gilani, POA Secretary General Mohammad Khalid Mehmood and IOC member in Pakistan Syed Shahid Ali will also cast their votes.

Similarly, 16 individual members including squash legend Jehangir Khan, hockey Olympian Islahuddin Siddique, Khurram Inam, Iftikhar Ahmed Tabassum, Syed Mohammad Abid Qadri, Syed Wasim Uddin Hashmi, Fatima Lakhani, Ehtisham-ul-Haq, Begum Ishrat Ashraf, Veena Masood, Andleeb Sindhu, Sumaira Sattar, Shagufta Malik, Shamim Akhtar, Ronak Lakhani and Ada Jaffery will also vote to elect the president and other office-bearers.

The contesting candidates’ final list will be known by the end of December 23.

Previous chiefs

The current POA chief and former DG FIA Mohammad Abid Qadri Gilani was elected early January 2024 as the POA 12th president for an interim period following the sudden resignation of former POA supremo Lt General (retd) Syed Arif Hasan.

Arif was the second longest serving POA president who acted as the NOC boss for long 20 years (From March 11 2004-January 1, 2024).

Before him Syed Wajid Ali Shah, father of current IOC member in Pakistan Syed Shahid Ali, served as POA chief for 26 years (March 3, 1978-March 11, 2004).

Ahmed EH Jaffar (February 25 1949-Feb 27 1950), Malik Ghulam Mohammad (Feb 27, 1950-Nov 5, 1951),Abdur Rab Nishtar (Nov 5, 1951-Aug 21, 1955), Chaudhry Mohammad Ali (Aug 21, 1955-Sept 1956), Hussain Shaheed Suhrawardy (Sept 1956-March 6, 1958), Feroz Khan Noon (March 16, 1958-Nov 16, 1958), Mohammad Azam Khan (Nov 16, 1958-Sept 22, 1963), Rana Abdul Hamid Khan (Sept 22, 1963-April 3, 1972) and Malik Miraj Khalid (April 3, 1972- Nov 1977) are the others who have got the honor to serve as POA chiefs.

Syed Wajid Ali Shah and Arif Hasan were two such presidents who prevailed for decades by keeping the Olympic family intact.

It was former Pakistan president General Musharraf who brought in Arif Hasan in 2004 as POA chief to end the marathon run of Syed Wajid Ali.

In 2012 and 2014 elections Arif Hasan had to face the oppositions but he was able to win his seat convincingly each time.

In the 2012 elections Arif remained successful by claiming 48.5 votes, beating his staunch opponent and the then Athletics Federation of Pakistan (AFP) president Major General (retd) Mohammad Akram Sahi who secured 32.5 votes. Qasim Zia, the then chief of Pakistan Hockey Federation (PHF), had got 21 votes.

In the 2016 POA elections again Arif Hasan defeated Sahi, now the chairman of the South Asian Athletics Association, by securing 80 votes in the 127-member house. Sahi had got 35 votes.

The sitting POA chief Mohammad Abid Qadri Gilani, also a former IG Police, is expected to be elected for a full term of four years provided no other panel emerges.

Sources in the Olympic family differ in their opinion as some say that a new panel is being formed to contest against the sitting POA chief Qadri and some say that they don’t smell any such move.

“What I have heard is that a new panel is being formed to contest the POA elections,” a highly influential source in the Olympic family told Nukta.

“I cannot say who is manipulating the things but there is a likely chance that it would be a competitive election,” the source said.

Another source said that currently there is no such smell like that.

“We have not heard anything. We also spent a few days in Islamabad during the Quaid-e-Azam Games but we did not hear any such thing. But the situation is sensitive as relations between the state and POA are not that good and something unusual may happen,” the source said.

Pakistan Sports Board (PSB) wants to control the Olympic family through various stringent rules but national federations have already renewed their commitment that they cannot deviate from the IOC charter and the regulations of their respective International Federations (IFs).

The PSB has also recently imposed ban on the Pakistan Boxing Federation (PBF) president Mohammad Khalid Mehmood and secretary Col Nasir Tung following the episode of the former Pakistan’s top boxer Zohaib Rasheed who vanished in Italy early this year before the 2024 Paris Olympics Qualifiers.

Khalid is also serving as POA secretary and will contest elections for the same post this time also.

Although POA is an autonomous body and even Pakistan’s top judiciary has declared it as an autonomous entity and state cannot directly interfere in its affairs but as was seen in the past state can play a role by bringing in its own candidate to contest for the POA presidency.

It would be interesting to see how the things unfold in the next few days.