Bar elections: Candidates spend Rs5.5m paying voters’ dues

Senior members condemn election practice as undemocratic.


Rana Tanveer January 24, 2011

LAHORE: Candidates for the Lahore High Court Bar Association’s (LHCBA) upcoming elections have spent over Rs5.5 million on clearing the annual fees of voting members or enrolling new members, The Express Tribune has learnt.

Senior bar members said this practice of election candidates paying membership dues and enrollment fees in order to get votes was tantamount to rigging and encouraged corruption.

Seven candidates for the elections, scheduled for February 26, have spent Rs5,569,500 so far on annual dues and enrollment fees for new members, The Express Tribune has learnt. They cleared the annual dues of 2,730 voters (Rs580 per head) and had 1,935 new members registered (at a cost of Rs2,060 each), LHCBA sources said.

Presidential candidate Rai Bashir Ahmed, a member of the Punjab Bar Council and the Judicial Commission of Pakistan, paid to get some 700 memberships renewed and the same number of advocates registered as new members of the LHCBA.

His rival Asghar Ali Gill, former chairman of the Punjab Bar Council and former president of the Lahore Bar Association, got about 800 memberships renewed and about 900 advocates registered as new members.

Mian Jahangir, candidate for vice president, paid the annual dues of 300 candidates and the enrollment fees of 175 advocates. His rival Usman Subhani Khan paid the dues of 250 members and the enrollment fees of 150 advocates. Arshad Malik Awan, Raja Jahanzeb Akhtar and Sardar Akbar Dogar, candidates for the office of secretary, paid the annual dues of 350, 203 and 175 voters respectively.

Lawyers said that candidates would now spend money on lavish meals for their voters. “They will host breakfast, lunch and dinner for small groups. Many voters will want fish on the menu since it’s so expensive,” said a lawyer. “The candidates spend the most on the day before the election or on the day. It is also their responsibility to bring the voters from elsewhere in the province to Lahore so they can vote.”

Iqbal Ahmed, an advocate from Mianwali, said that coming to Lahore for the bar elections was “like a fair”. The voters would be bussed in and provided snacks like dry fruit and boiled eggs along the way. “The luncheons and dinners really count,” he said. “Usually he who gives the most lavish meal wins the elections.”

All the voter-wooing brings the cost of campaigning for the seat of LHCBA president to around Rs10 million, said the bar sources. Running for the seat of vice president, secretary or secretary general costs between Rs1.5 million and Rs2 million.

Senior bar members including Malik Amjad Parvez, SM Masood, and Masood Ahmed Malik said this practice of buying votes was undemocratic and a form of pre-poll rigging, but the practice was not discouraged. They said the cost of the campaign deterred “genuine candidates” from running. It also encouraged corruption, since the bar’s representatives, having spent so much to get into their posts, “need to recover their election costs,” they said.

Advocate Muhammad Azhar Siddique said that the bar should set up a committee of 50 senior members to manage the elections by informing voters of their choices and by ensuring that candidates do not spend money on buying votes. He said that one positive change would be to bar new members from voting for two years.

The LHCBA has 13,508 voting members out of a total of 18,963 registered voters. The other 5,455 are defaulters who owe at least Rs5,000 each and are ineligible to vote.

The body of members includes 7,667 life members, though the bar has stopped granting life memberships since July 12, 201, and 2,333 new members. For 2011, the annual renewal fees has been increased from Rs580 to Rs760.

Published in The Express Tribune, January 24th,  2011.

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