LAHORE, Oct 24: With 50 per cent membership of the Supreme Court Bar Association hailing from Lahore, the city is the main focus of the candidates for election to Bar offices on Saturday.

The SCBA has 1,317 members, 667 from Lahore, 253 from Sindh, 147 from Rawalpindi-Islamabad, 100 from the NWFP, 69 from Multan and 38 from Bahawalpur.

All the three candidates contesting for the coveted office of president have long been here. They were seen hectically engaged in a last canvassing offensive on Friday.

This time the president’s office goes to Balochistan and those in the run are Mohammad Ashraf Khan Tanoli, Mohammad Riaz and Tariq Mahmood. The last-mentioned resigned from the Election Commission of Pakistan, and ultimately from the Balochistan High Court, on the referendum issue.

According to Hamid Khan, president of the SCBA who is now conducting elections as the returning officer, two vice-presidents, Ali Ahmad Kurd from Balochistan and Mohammad Latif Yusufzai from the NWFP, have been elected unopposed. Similarly, two members of the executive committee from the NWFP, Malik Manzoor Husain and Roohul Amin, have also been elected unopposed.

There are contests between Abdul Wahid Chaudhry and Mohammad Ikramullah Chaudhry from the Punjab and Mohammad Akram Zuberi and Mohammad Aziz Malik from Sindh for vice-president’s office.

For the office of secretary, which has been allocated to Lahore, Ali Ahmad Chaudhry, Farooq Zaman Qureshi and Nawab Saeedullah Khan are in the run.

The post of the additional secretary is being contested by Dil Mohammad Tarar and Syed Rifaqat Husain Shah and that of finance secretary by Mohammad Naeem Sheikh and Zulfiqar Ahmad Bhutta. Both the offices have been reserved for Rawalpindi, and all the contestants are from that city.

Thirteen candidates for the executive committee are from the Punjab, four from Balochistan and three from Sindh.