KARACHI: Lt General (retd) Syed Arif Hasan is set to retain his seat as president of Pakistan Olympic Association (POA) unopposed in the NOC elections scheduled to be held in Lahore on November 26.
The final list of nominations shows that voting will only be held for electing five lady executive members as six candidates have filed nominations for these seats. This will be the fifth successive time that Arif would be elected as POA chief for four-year tenure.
Mohammad Khalid Mehmood is set to retain his seat unopposed as POA Secretary General, while Mohammad Shafiq, who is also the president of Pakistan Handball Federation (PHF), will also retain his seat as treasurer unopposed.
For the first time, a seat of senior vice-president has been created and the only candidate for the position is president of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Olympic Association Syed Aqil Shah who recently organised the 33rd National Games in Peshawar.
Khalid Saleem, Mohammad Zaheer Akhtar, Chaudhry Mohammad Yaqoob, Syed Mohammad Abid Qadri Gillani and Shoukat Javed are going to become the vice-presidents. The two lady vice-presidents seats will be grabbed by Fatima Lakhani and Begum Ishrat Ashraf.
For Deputy Secretary General seat, Pakistan Karate Federation's (PKF) chairman Mohammad Jehangir is the only candidate who has submitted his nomination.
Similarly, Zulfiqar Ali Butt, Hafiz Imran Butt, Rizwan-ul-Haq Razi, Ahmed Ali, Sohail Ahmed Khan and Ahmer Mallick are set to become Associate Secretary Generals uncontested.
The only seat of lady Associate Secretary General will go to Veena Masud, who is also the secretary of Pakistan Swimming Federation (PSF).
Meanwhile, Majid Waseem, Javed Shamshad Lodhi, Wajid Ali Chaudhry, Amna Tanvir, Lt Col Wasim Ahmed and Asif Azeem are set to grab seats specified for representatives of Olympic sports federations.
For the five seats of lady executive members six candidates including Andleeb Sandhu, Sana Ali, Zainab Shoukat, Sumera Sattar, Shamim Akhtar and Shahida Khanum will be contesting.
As many as 112 voters will cast their votes. Olympic federations have three votes each, non-Olympic federations have two votes each, while provincial Olympic associations and other units including Army, Navy, PAF, Higher Education Commission (HEC), Police, Railways and WAPDA have one vote each.
Tennis and equestrian federations have not sent their nominations.
The athletes commission has two votes. The POA chief, POA secretary and International Olympic Committee (IOC) member Syed Shahid Ali will also cast their votes. There are 16 individual members who will also cast their votes.
