Lawyers to vote today for new SC Bar Association president

Rasheed A Razvi and Yasin Azad Khan confident of a clear win.

KARACHI: Undeterred but nervous, Supreme Court Bar Association of Pakistan election candidates and their aides claim to be miles ahead of each other in the competition for the coveted post of president. Polling will take place today.

While talking to The Express Tribune, Rasheed A Razvi, who has won elections from the Karachi Bar Association to the Sindh High Court Bar Association and now the Supreme Court, said he had visited all four premises of the Lahore Bar Association with Aitazaz Ahsan, Munir A Malik and Hamid Khan. He added that the mainstream leaders of the movement for restoration of judges and free judiciary were with him.

For him, a strong bar compliments a strong judiciary. “The bar is the backbone of the judiciary.”

In response to a question, he said that lot of government resources were being employed to ensure that his opponent won. “People at Governor House Lahore, Khyber Pukhtunkhwa and Chief Minister House Sindh are very active in our elections,” he quipped.

He mentioned a programme held at Governor House Lahore on Thursday and wondered why the government had suddenly woken up and started to distribute funds to the bars in October.

Razvi’s rival is Yasin Khan Azad, a veteran leader, who was active in bar politics. He also appeared to be confident and has the support from legal luminaries like Abid Hasan Minto, Asma Jehangir, Sindh High Court Bar Association former president Akhtar Hussain and Ali Ahmed Kurd.

He denied receiving any support from the Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) government or its coalition partner the Muttahida Quami Movement. “I have been out of Karachi for two months and cannot say who is supporting me,” he said from Lahore.

Lahore has 1,025 members, Islamabad has 322 members, followed closely by Karachi with 260 members, Multan has 225, Bahawalpur has 120, Quetta and Peshawar 112 or 113 each and Abbottabad has 50. All in all, 2,317 members of the SCBAP will be casting their votes. The polling is set to start at 9 am and end at 5 pm on Saturday (today). The results should be out by midnight.

Published in The Express Tribune, October 29^th, 2011.