Lt Gen (retd) Arif Hasan elected POA chief for fifth consecutive term

KARACHI: Lt Gen (retd) Arif Hasan on Tuesday retained his seat as Pakistan Olympic Association’s (POA) president unopposed in the NOC elections held at Avari Hotel in Lahore.

This is the fifth successive time that Arif has been elected as POA chief for a four-year tenure. Arif is the second longest-serving POA chief as he has so far served as president for 16 years. Late Wajid Ali Shah headed the body for 26 years, from March 3, 1978, to March 11, 2004.

Khalid Mehmood retained his seat unopposed as POA Secretary General. Mohammad Shafiq, who is also the president of Pakistan Handball Federation (PHF), also got re-elected as treasurer unopposed.

For the first time a specific seat of senior vice-president had been created and the only candidate for that was the president of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Olympic Association Aqil Shah, who recently organised 33rd National Games at Peshawar. Aqil got elected as senior vice-president.

Those elected as vice presidents are Khalid Saleem, Zaheer Akhtar, Chaudhry Mohammad Yaqoob, Abid Qadri Gillani, and Shoukat Javed. The two lady vice-presidents seats were grabbed by Fatima Lakhani and Begum Ishrat Ashraf.

Pakistan Karate Federation’s (PKF) chairman Mohammad Jehangir got elected uncontested as Deputy Secretary General. Those elected as associate secretary generals were Zulfiqar Ali Butt, Hafiz Imran Butt, Rizwan-ul-Haq Razi, Ahmed Ali, Sohail Ahmed Khan and Ahmer Mallick.

The only seat of lady associate secretary general went to Veena Masud, who is also the secretary of Pakistan Swimming Federation (PSF). Majid Waseem, Javed Shamshad Lodhi, Wajid Ali Chaudhry, Amna Tanvir, Lt Col Wasim Ahmed and Asif Azeem clinched seats specified for representatives of Olympic sports federations.

Voting was held for five seats of the lady executive members as six candidates were in the run. As per result shared with the media by the POA Election Commission, Andleeb Sandhu (88 votes out of 89), Sana Ali (88/89), Zainab Shoukat (84/89), Sumera Sattar (88/89) and Shamim Akhtar (85/89) got elected. Shahida Khanum managed only nine votes.

There were 110 voters, out of whom 95 were present. The representatives of Athletics Federation of Pakistan (AFP) left the house without casting their votes, a source said.