PBF General Council endorses January 24 elections

KARACHI: Pakistan Boxing Federation (PBF) General Council on Wednesday endorsed the January 24 elections of the federation and rejected the AIBA letter in which the world boxing governing body had rejected the PBF elections.

After going through every aspect of the issue, the general body found no issue in the electoral process and endorsed the January 24 PBF elections. It also advised the PBF chairman to write to AIBA and request the world body to review its letter sent to the PBF a few days ago and remove the discrepancies in the letter and recognise the PBF elections held in January.

A senior official of the PBF told ‘The News’ that the PBF was writing a letter to AIBA in which the world body would be requested as advised by the general body.

“If still our elections are not recognised then we will contest it at various forums,” the official said.

The meeting, which was held in Lahore, was chaired by the PBF chairman Lt Gen (retd) Muzammil Hussain.

Meanwhile, AIBA said it expected the PBF to conduct the elections within three months under the directives of AIBA. Otherwise, the matter would be referred to the AIBA Board of Directors.

“AIBA Head Office evaluated the situation with the elections in the Pakistan Boxing Federation (PBF) held in January 2021,” AIBA told ‘The News’. “At the AIBA’s disposal was all necessary information, including protocol of the minutes of the general council meeting. Based on this evaluation, AIBA came to the conclusion that the elections, prima facie, were held in breach of Article 11.1 (e) of the AIBA Constitution, according to which each National Federation (NF) is obliged to ‘democratically elect or appoint its officers and executive body in accordance with its constitution and generally recognised democratic and good governance principles’,” it said.

“Considering the above, AIBA kindly requested PBF to hold new elections under control of AIBA and with participation of AIBA observer. If this request will not be respected and no elections will be held within threemonths upon the request, then the issue will be submitted to the AIBA Board of Directors (BoD). Please note, it is exclusive competence of the BoD to suspend NF’s and no decision was taken on this issue at the moment,” AIBA said.

“AIBA expects cooperation from PBF and hopes for a soon normalisation of the current situation in PBF,” AIBA said.