Casting ballots: Arts Council gears up for election today

Contest to be held for president, vice-president, secretary, joint secretary, treasurer and 12 governing body members

KARACHI: As many as 5,720 voters of the Arts Council of Pakistan, Karachi, will elect the five office-bearers and 12 members of the governing body for the year, 2016, today. There is a straight fight between two panels.

Ejaz Ahmed Faruqi of the Ahmed Shah-Ejaz Faruqi panel is contesting for the post of president against Rizwan Siddiqui of the Shehr-e-Quaid panel. Sahar Ansari is vying for the vice-president's post against M Zaheer Khan of the Shehr-e-Quaid panel.

Huma Mir of the Ahmed Shah-Ejaz Faruqi panel is competing for the post of secretary against Najumuddin Shaikh while Athar Waqar Azim is contesting for the joint secretary's post against Khalid Arain of the Shehr-e-Quaid panel. Shahnaz Siddiqui of the Ahmed Shah-Ejaz Faruqi panel is competing against Amjad Farid Sabri for the post of treasurer.



Karachi commissioner Shoaib Ahmed Siddiqui, as chairperson of the Karachi Arts Council, has called a meeting of the general body today  at 9am. After the meeting, the polling will start that will continue for eight hours. The total numbers of voters who are going to cast their votes for the elections is 5,720. Though the total number of members is 7,049, only those members who have paid the annual membership fee of Rs300 are eligible to cast their votes.

As the chief election commissioner, the commissioner has assigned the task of supervising elections to the South deputy commissioner Muhammad Saleem Rajput. Rajput is also the head of the supervisory committee that will conduct the elections being held today.

"We are asking Arts Council members to vote on the basis of what we had done for the Karachi Arts Council in the last year," said Faruqi. He recalled the Karachi Youth Festival, Aalmi Mushaira and the International Urdu Conference among the few events held at Arts Council in the year 2015 under the supervision of their panel.

He also said that a theatre building will also be completed by the year, 2016. "I have turned around Karachi Arts council intellectually and physically in the past eight years," said Shah. In short, he said, he had brought a cultural revolution in the Arts Council.

According to Rizwan Siddiqui, he will bring back the eastern culture to the Arts Council if the Shehr-e-Quaid panel wins the elections. He said Sindhi, Balochi and Gujurati languages and cultures will be promoted. He added that the Arts Council can play a positive role in bringing back the Baloch people closer to Pakistan because poets, writers and civil society can help.

The two major political parties — the Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) and the Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM)  — are also active in the Arts Council elections. But Aminul Haque of the MQM said the party is not supporting any panel in the Arts Council elections but its supporters have an inclination towards the Shehr-e-Quaid panel.

According to PPP's Shehla Raza, the party will not put its weight with any one panel. The PPP wants to let the Arts Council remain an apolitical organisation, she said.

Last year, out of the total 5,771 voters, more than 3,100 voters cast their votes. The elections were won by Ejaz Faruqi as president, Sahar Ansari as vice-president, Muhammad Ahmed Shah as secretary, Huma Mir as joint secretary and Shahnaz Siddiqui as treasurer. Ahmed Shah, having presided over the affairs of the Arts Council for eight year, is not contesting elections this time.

Published in The Express Tribune, December 20^th, 2015.