Rare phenomenon: Gymkhana elections delayed further

LAHORE:

The Lahore Gymkhana Club’s Committee of Management could not finalise on Monday a date for its annual elections.

The committee held an annual general meeting and an extraordinary general meeting under Mian Misbahur Rehman on Monday to approve the club’s budget and decide on an election date.

The CoM passed 18 articles including the decision that elections would be held on a yearly basis. It decided that a member could not contest for a CoM position more than three consecutive terms. He or she must retire for a year to be able to participate in the elections again.

The Co-operative Societies registrar previously objected to holding elections every year. He wrote a letter to the CoM chairman in December 2013 saying that elections should be held after three years as the club was registered under the Company Act.

The CoM, however, decided to elect the club cabinet every year. The club has been holding elections in December every year since it was registered as a company in 1896.

This year three panels – one headed by business tycoon Rehman and two by former bureaucrats Kamaran Lashari and Tasneem Ahmed Noorni – are in the race.

Given a close three-way race no group might have seven members needed to elect the chairman on its own.

The incumbent CoM has arranged dinners, a musical night, a golf tournament, a tennis competition and a swimming gala. The candidates have started campaigning by sending letters and text messages and arranging corner meetings and dinners.

“But members are not happy with the delay in the vote,” a member told The Express Tribune.

He said members of all three panels might share prestigious slots such as head of guestrooms in case they did not win independent majority. The chief secretaries have traditionally shown keen interest in elections. Former chief secretaries Pervez Masood and Salman Siddique were quite active in this regard.

“This is not the case this year,” said the member who did not wish to be named. The interest of political parties has also increased over the years.

One of the contesting members alleged that Rehman had been delaying the announcement of election date because his panel was facing difficulty nominating popular candidates. Rehman said this was not the case. He said the date could not be announced until the registrar approved the articles passed by the CoM. He said the incumbent CoM would continue running club affairs until a new management was elected. He ruled out negation with a group to constitute a consensus panel.

Published in The Express Tribune, January 14^th, 2015.