LAHORE, Sept 19: As the election of the Lahore Chamber of Commerce and Industry (LCCI) draws closer, the rival candidates have stepped up their door-to-door campaign to reach as many voters as possible before polling for four chamber class and as many associate class seats on Sept 24-25.

“Panel votes count. But individual votes matter even more in a close and tough contest like this,” says a candidate. “Personal relations, family ties, friendships, and a telephone call or two before the polling day matter a lot in the election like this. The results of such elections do not only reflect the popularity of the group that a candidate represents, but also indicate his personal abilities to draw voters,” he said.

The candidates fielded by the rival groups —- the Founders and the PIAF-Founders Group Alliance —- are trying to reach each and every voter to catch up with their campaign. This is despite the hectic efforts being done by their groups to win over the support of individual voters, different trade and business organizations, fence sitters and those who want to keep themselves away from the process for one reason or the other.

It would not be incorrect to say that both the groups are also counting a great deal on the “personal votes” of their respective candidates to assess and re-assess their “panel votebank”.

“Both the competing groups have certain candidates who are expected by them to enhance their respective panel vote to help the weaker candidates through the election,” admits campaign in-charge of a group.

It is pertinent to mention that the Founders, with their eight executive committee members, require to return another six to the 27-member committee (election to one trade group seat has already been delayed till Sept 30 by the DTO on the complaint of the alliance) to continue to rule the chamber.

The alliance with 10 seats in hand —- six belonging to the PIAF and rest to the Founders Group —- needs four more to sail through.

There are 965 registered voters in the chamber class. Usually, the voter turnout on the polling day has remained as low as 40-45 per cent. Last year, however, the turnout shot up to about 72 per cent —- the highest ever —- as 674 voters out of 926 polled votes.

If last year’s result is anything to go by, each candidate for the four chamber class seats will have to strive for 350-400 votes (some say even more than that) as the turnout is expected to go up to 700.

Both the groups claim to have a solid panel votebank of about 300 each in the chamber class, counting numerous edges over the rival. The Founders claim to have already won the support of major trade groups like Aptma, the PRGMEA and the PCMEA and biradaris like Chiniotis. In addition to this, the Founders have also managed to “mobilize” many businessmen from these groups, who have so far kept themselves away from the chamber politics, to actively campaign for its candidates.

“We’re leading our rivals with a big margin as far as the support of major trade bodies are concerned,” says the Founders leader, Pervaiz Hanif. “We hope that the members of these groups would vote en bloc for us because of the quality of candidates put up by us.”

The alliance leaders concede that their rivals enjoyed a slight edge over them as far as some of the major trade bodies were concerned. Yet they say no group would vote en bloc for the Founders.

They say they also enjoyed substantial support of voters from such trade bodies as is indicated by substantial presence of businessmen from these trade associations in the lunches and dinners hosted by the alliance or its supporters. Moreover, they say, the internal politics and rifts in almost trade bodies would prevent en bloc voting for one panel or the other.

“Don’t discount us. We also have abundant support from these groups,” says alliance leader and past president, Mohsin Bokhari. Besides, he says, the PIAF has got about 80 votes upgraded to the chamber class who are definitely going to vote for us.

A chamber official says the real test for the two groups would be to win over 200-300 chamber class vote scattered in the city’s markets. “These voters would play the decisive role. Any group or candidate who manages to win over them would have no problem sail through the troubled waters.”

For the associate class seats, both the panels would have to rely more on the personal standing of their candidates in the city’s markets instead of traders associations and organizations.

A look at the last year’s results shows that the Founders Group, a partner of the PIAF in the alliance, does not enjoy much support in the markets because of several factors. But it hopes that its alliance with the PIAF, which is believed to enjoy a greater support among the associate class voters than any other group, has strengthened its position viz-a-viz the Founders.

In 1997, the PIAF won six associate class seats. It did not win even a single chamber class seat. In the following years, however, it failed to clinch even a single associate class seat, though it was able to send one chamber class candidate to the EC in 1998.

The PIAF was almost wiped out till formed alliance with the Founders, which came into being as a result of divisions in the Founders Group. In 2002, the Founders-PIAF Alliance defeated the Founders Group nominees with huge margins of over 800 and more votes which exposed the weak support base of the latter in the associate class.

Though it remains to be seen whether the alliance manages to win a majority associate class seats or not, it would be naive to rule out the Founders whose supporters say the PIAF’s support is mainly restricted in the Township Industrial Estate. The Founders insist that their support base in the city markets far exceeded the joint strength of the PIAF and the Founders Group.

In the elections 2002, some 2,286 had polled their votes. “The turnout is expected to increase this year due to the effort being put in by the rival groups to reach over 7,800 registered voters of the associate class,” those involved in the election drive say. “The results on the polling day however would depend a great deal on the ability of the contestants to transport voters to the chamber to poll their votes.”

But as a past president, who, like previous years, is actively involved in the PIAF-Founders Group Alliance’s election campaign, remarked: “The outcome of this year’s election is going to expose many. The political standing of everyone involved actively in the election is at stake. Everyone will know his worth no sooner than the results start pouring in.”