Bar politicking: Professional Group suffers defections

Chosen candidate admits he has paid voters’ dues.

LAHORE:

Two candidates in the Lahore High Court Bar Association (LHCBA) elections who had sought the Professional Group of Lawyers (PGL) endorsement have parted ways with the group after they were not nominated.

One of these candidates has started a campaign as an independent. Both candidates accused the PGL of supporting an opponent instead of fielding one of its own. On December 10, the PGL had announced its support for Aslam Buttar, who had opposed the group.

After the PGL announced decision, Shafqat Mahmood Chohan started campaigning as an independent while Raja Javed Iqbal switched his support to Shahram Sarwar, the presidential candidate endorsed by the Asma Jahangir-led group. Chohan and Iqbal had both eyed the presidential slot.

Chohan told The Express Tribune that he would contest the elections. He said irrespective of a PGL decision to withdraw its support for Buttar or continue it he would not retreat. He said most of the PGL voters had not accepted Buttar and this could only benefit him. He was hopeful about his success.

Iqbal told The Express Tribune said he would not support the candidate put forward by Hamid Khan. Iqbal, who supported Asma Jahangir’s supported candidate Numan Qureshi in the Lahore Bar Association elections, said considering he was not supporting Hamid Khan’s candidate, it should be clear where his support lay.

Buttar said PGL supporters’ success in the district bars of Lahore, Faisalabad, Wazirabad, Gujranwala, Hafizabad and Kasur indicated that he would prevail in the LHCBA election. He said Chohan and Iqbal should have thrown their support behind him much like the rest of their group.

The presidential hopeful said now that Chohan had split from the PGL, voters would not be inclined towards him.

He said since October he had been paying the annual dues of voters.

Buttar said he had paid nearly Rs1 million to clear the dues of such voters. He admitted that he had paid dues of 1,150 lawyers so that they could cast vote for the LHCBA. He said Chohan too had paid the annual fee for several voters.

The fees for getting a new membership of the LHCBA is Rs 2,060, a new life membership fee for non-residents of the city is Rs4,000 while city residents pay Rs5,000.

The last date for paying dues was December 31. The total number of LHCBA members is 20,304. The number of members in default was 4,622 and members in good standing 15,682. There are 9,786 life members and 1,078 are women members.

Last year the total number of voters was 13,508 out of total membership of 18,963. There were 7,667 voters who were life members. The remaining 5,455 had defaulted. There were 2,333 new members.

According to former law minister Advocate SM Masood, in the second phase of campaigning candidates throw lavish receptions in five-star hotels for voters. They also, he said, bear expenses on the day prior to election and on the day itself to provide top notch food to voters. He added that some candidates transport their supporters from different parts of the province to Lahore.

Advocate Masood said candidates incur up to Rs10 million in expenses in their campaign. Although senior members of the bar condemn this as unethical but so far no concrete steps have been taken to discourage it, he said.

He said that such practices stopped some from entering bar politics. He added that such practices had introduced corruption in the bar as the candidates wanted to recover their expenses by any means possible.

Published in The Express Tribune, January 16^th, 2012.