PSA elections ‘postponed’

KARACHI: Director General Sports Board of Punjab has postponed the elections of Punjab Squash Association (PSA) which were to be held on Wednesday (today).

According to a notification of Directorate General Sports, Punjab, issued on Monday the elections of PSA have been postponed.

The decision was taken on a petition of former PSA secretary Malik Nasim-ul-Haq. “Reference order dated 24-11-2016 passed by Lahore High Court in Writ Petition No.36887 of 2016 you are hereby requested to appear before the Director General Sports Punjab on 26-12-2016 at 1:00pm in his office along with relevant record, if any, in support of your version,” the notification addressed to Nasim stated.

The Director Sports added: “I am further directed to intimate that the elections of PSA being held on 30-11-2016 shall remain suspended/postponed till final orders to be passed by the Director General Sports Punjab in pursuance of the directions of Lahore High Court.”

Nasim told ‘The News’ that there were anomalies in the constitution of PSA. “The sitting body gave voting rights to their office bearers, which is not allowed anywhere,” said Nasim.

He added that in the presence of voting rights to nine office bearers the sitting body would have easily won the elections without support from its divisions. “I wrote six letters to Secretary Pakistan Squash Federation (PSF) in this regard but to no avail, so I had to take this step,” said Nasim.

Nasim wrote a letter recently to PSF stating that they were not following the recommendations of SBP before conducting the elections.

“The PSB in its report recommended a few measures to be taken before the next elections of PSA. It prescribed a transparent election commission to be formed by PSF; removal of the clause of PSA Constitution which gives voting rights to office-bearers as it is against the National Sports Policy 2005; and transparent pre-election process,” stated Nasim.

Also, he added, the PSF was supposed to announce the names of candidates and voters.

He said none of the recommendations was implemented. “It is highly objectionable that a contesting panel does not have access to basic information of these elections,” said Nasim.