By Imran Malik | Business & Accountability Desk | MediaBites.com.pk
Vision Alliance has won 13 of 15 Corporate Class seats in the Lahore Chamber of Commerce and Industry election with Ali Hassam leading on 1700 votes as PPBA demands recount.
The Lahore Chamber of Commerce and Industry has delivered its verdict — and it is a landslide that nobody in the PIAAF camp saw coming.
The Election Commission announced provisional results of the LCCI Corporate Class elections, with Vision Alliance winning 13 of 15 Executive Committee seats and the PPBA Alliance — the group backed by former patron-in-chief Mian Anjum Nisar — securing only 2 seats.
The results were announced by Election Commission members Khalid Gujjar and Haris Atiq.
The Full Result — Vote by Vote
Vision Alliance — 13 Seats Won:
Ali Hassam Asghar led the entire poll with 1,700 votes — confirming his position as the presidential candidate with the strongest individual mandate in the election.
The complete Vision Alliance winners in order of votes received:
- Ali Hassam Asghar — 1,700 votes
- Sheikh Muhammad Ibrahim — 1,638 votes
- Hamid Raza — 1,605 votes
- Yusuf Rizvi — 1,588 votes
- Azeem Iftikhar — 1,585 votes
- Syed Mardan Ali Zaidi — 1,570 votes
- Tariq Mahmood — 1,562 votes
- Zulfiqar Chaudhry — 1,549 votes
- Hammad Mahmood — 1,544 votes
- Chaudhry Fargham — 1,541 votes
- Muhammad Ali — 1,535 votes
- Umar Abdullah — 1,512 votes
- Hamza Majeed — 1,455 votes
PPBA Alliance — 2 Seats Won:
- Tahir Manzoor Chaudhry — 1,478 votes
- Amir Ata Bari — 1,460 votes
Anjum Nisar Raises Objections — Recount Demanded
The results have not been accepted without challenge.
Mian Anjum Nisar, Chairman of the PPBA Alliance, immediately expressed serious reservations about the vote counting process. The PPBA Alliance has formally submitted a recount application to the Election Commission.
In a significant development the record has been sealed in the presence of DGTO observers — a procedural step that preserves the integrity of the counting documentation while the recount application is considered.
The recount demand signals that the PPBA Alliance is not prepared to accept the scale of the defeat without scrutiny. Whether the recount changes any outcome remains to be seen but the margin of the Vision Alliance victory — winning 13 of 15 seats — is substantial enough that even a recount is unlikely to fundamentally alter the result.
What This Result Means
The scale of the Vision Alliance’s victory is the story within the story.
Ali Hassam Asghar — who MediaBites previously reported had been sidelined by Mian Anjum Nisar’s own group before the election — has not only won but led the entire Corporate Class poll with the highest individual vote count of 1,700.
The irony is complete. The candidate that the PIAAF-PPBA establishment attempted to marginalise has just delivered the most decisive election mandate in recent LCCI history.
For Mian Anjum Nisar, whose group held the LCCI presidency for years and who entered this election as the incumbent power, a result of 2 seats out of 15 is not just a defeat. It is a transformation of the LCCI’s political landscape.
MediaBites Reaction
MediaBites covered this election extensively — from the controversy over language and dignity of the campaign to the corruption allegations, the LCCI election versus Punjabi film comparison and the call for business community elders including Mian Abu Zar to restore civility to the process.
The voters of Lahore’s business community have now spoken. They did not just choose a candidate. They chose a direction.
The LCCI’s biggest election in decades has produced its most decisive result. The counting is done. The recount is pending. But Lahore’s business community has made its voice heard.
— Imran Malik | Business and Accountability Desk | MediaBites.com.pk | Southera.com
Source: LCCI Election Commission, Khalid Gujjar, Haris Atiq
