Results withheld for ‘disputed’ FPCCI elections

Balochistan industrialists protest against nominating ‘rogue’ businessman.

KARACHI: When polling ended at the elite club of businessmen on Thursday evening, the representatives of Balochistan chambers sensed that they had lost the contest. Despite this, they were content that they had put up the strongest possible resistance to the powerful ruling panel.

After a series of meetings between the jury and the infuriated Balochistan industrialists, it was decided to stop the vote count until the Sindh High Court passes a ruling on the “disputed” elections for the Federation of Pakistan Chambers of Commerce and Industry (FPCCI).

The standoff started some time ago when Balochistan industrialists accused the ruling panel of FPCCI of supporting a “rogue businessman” from the province instead of the one nominated by them.

Later, they went to the Sindh High Court which withheld election results until the case was decided, but the court ruling did not clearly mention that the jury could not even count the votes.

When voting time ended on Thursday, FPCCI members from Balochistan started agitating and stopped the jury from counting the votes that triggered an unusual chaos in an otherwise calm and peaceful head office of FPCCI.

After the decision to seal the ballot box, Senator Nawabzada Lashkari Raisani told The Express Tribune that the powerful ruling elite of FPCCI wanted to elect a non-genuine businessman from Balochistan, whose association was not even listed with the Securities and Exchange Commission of Pakistan (SECP).

Raisani, who contested for the slot of FPCCI president with the support of six chambers of Balochistan, said, “after a long gap of 12 years, we have the opportunity to elect a president from Balochistan. But the ruling elite want to continue the status quo and are trying to snatch our rights.”

According to a formula based on population, the FPCCI president is elected from every province on a rotating basis but owing to the small population of Balochistan, it gets the opportunity after every 12 years.

Besides Raisani, two other candidates – Fazal Qadir Sherani and Maqsood Ismail – vied for the prestigious post.

Chairman of the ruling Businessmen Panel, Tariq Saeed, said their candidates had been sweeping the elections on merit for a long time.

Published in The Express Tribune, December 30^th, 2011.