Qamar, Sahi to vie for POA presidency

Elections to be held on July 5 in Islamabad.

KARACHI: As the elections of the Pakistan Olympic Association (POA) draw near, hopefuls for the presidential and secretary posts have come forward to contest their rivals for the coveted seats.

It has been learnt that in the interim committee nomination for the presidential post, Akram Sahi will be facing squash legend Qamar Zaman, who has been nominated by Senator Haji Ghulam Ali on behalf of the Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa Olympic Association.

Zaman was a ruling player of his days and later held key positions as senior vice president of the Asian Squash Federation and vice president of the Pakistan Squash Federation. In addition, he also built a strong image internationally due to his penchant for the promotion of squash.

On the other hand, General (retd) Akram Sahi has been looking after the Athletics Federation of Pakistan. Sahi is also known for his commitment to promote athletics while he has also been developing connections with the International Associations of Athletics Federation.It is pertinent to mention here that Sahi was in favour of bringing in Zaman as the POA secretary but was forced to withdraw the latter’s nomination after facing resistance from other officials.

“There have been talks going on between the groups of Sahi and Zaman to reach an amicable solution,” an interim committee official told The Express Tribune.

“Obviously if they compete against each other, the vote bank will be divided and anything can happen. So people are trying to get them on board together which would result in unanimous elections of both officials for key posts which is necessary to send a strong message that people are united for the promotion of sports in Pakistan.”

Meanwhile, the names that have come up for the post of secretary are former Olympian Rana Mujahid Ali and Khwaja Farooq Saeed of Pakistan Gymnastic Federation.

The process of filing nominations for these posts ended on Monday night and now the elections will take place on July 5 in Islamabad.

“We will have to wait and see who supports whom because the panels are yet to be made,” said the official.

“But it’s likely that Sahi will have Mujahid in his panel as both groups have supported each other ever since Sahi and Qasim Zia lost elections of the POA to Arif Hasan.

“However, they’ve now realised that they need to be together as the time for the new elections approaches.”

Published in The Express Tribune, June 26^th, 2013.

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