By Imran Malik
The Lahore Press Club’s elections for the year 2024 were held on December 24 at the club’s building in Lahore. People associated with the media actively participated and exercised their right to vote.
The Lahore Press Club, known for delivering fast and credible news to people across Pakistan, has yet to organize itself as a better media house. Despite various claims from different panels, the club has not been able to establish itself on modern lines, to share their election news timely to media outlets.
The competition this time was tough as an alliance had formed between two major journalist groups, the Journalists’ Group, and the Progressive Group. This alliance was led by Arshad Ansari, who had won this coveted seat many times. After a fierce contest, Arshad Ansari secured a victory against Pioneer’s Shahbaz Mian with 984 votes to Mian’s 811 votes.
In the race for the senior vice president from the Pioneer Group, ‘Har Dil Aziz’ Shiraz Hasanat, with a record 1035 votes, defeated Zia-ul-Haq Niazi of the Journalists and Progressive Alliance, with a margin of 302 votes.
Zia-ul-Haq Khan secured 733 votes. It is noteworthy that 25 votes were rejected for the presidential candidate, while 52 votes were rejected for the senior vice president.
For the position of secretary, Zahid Abid of the Journalists and Progressive Alliance won with 983 votes, while his counterpart from the Pioneer Panel, Shadab Riaz, managed to secure 811 votes.
In the race for the vice president’s seat, Amjad Usmani of the Journalists and Progressive Alliance secured victory with 1008 votes, defeating Pioneer’s Rana Muhammad Akram, who received 739 votes.
For the joint secretary’s seat, Jaffar Bin Yar of the Pioneer Panel won with 902 votes, while Farukh Butt of the Journalists and Progressive Alliance received 865 votes.
For the treasurer position, Salik Nawaz of the Journalists and Progressive Alliance remained victorious with 996 votes, while Shahid Chaudhry of the Pioneers secured 793 votes.
The elected candidates for the governing body are as follows:
- Shahbaz Chaudhry 791
- Imran Sheikh 685
- Rana Shahzad 673
- Ijaz Mirza 634
- Mohsin Bilal 634
- Aliya Khan 592
- Fatima Mukhtar 574
- Baba Abid Hussain 531
- Syed Badr Saeed 504
Point: Over the last few years, the Pioneer Panel had been consolidating its position as the winning panel and was growing stronger day by day. It was during this period that veteran journalist Arshad Ansari once again stepped forward and unified the divided mandate of the Journalist and Progressive panels. The alliance between the Journalists and Progressive panels made it possible to successfully challenge the heavyweight candidate from the Pioneer Panel, Muhammad Shahbaz Mian.
MediaBites congratulates Arshad Ansari on becoming the president and Shiraz Hasanat and other winning members. It hopes that the new team will address the issues of journalists on journalistic grounds, not just create an agenda for the ‘Sahafi colony’.
It also urges that news websites with more than five years of existence be represented in the digital wing of the Press Club.
