KARACHI: Former bureaucrat and one of the senior most sports official, S.M. Sibtain, was reelected as president of the Pakistan Table Tennis Federation for a four-year-term (2018-2021) in the electoral general body meeting of the PTTF held at the Karachi Gymkhana on Sunday.

Ahmer Malik was elected as secretary in the elections that were marred by boycott by four units, Army, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, HEC and Islamabad.

According to election commissioner Younus Rizwani, nine of the 15 votes were casted. The six votes that could not be casted belonged to Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (three), Army, Islamabad and HEC, one each.

This is the second successive term of Sibtain as the PTTF president and overall third. Prior to his elevation as the president, Sibtain had served as the PTTF secretary for 12 years from 1978 to 1990.

Sibtan is also vice-president of the Asian Table Tennis Union (ATTU) and member Board of Directors of the International Table Tennis Federation (ITTF).

“Balochistan association was declared ‘defunct’ before the meeting on the pretext that despite four reminders, it failed to conduct elections and set the house in order as per requirement of the Pakistan Olympic Association (POA) and the PTTF general body endorsed the decision.” Sibtain told Dawn.

To a question, Sibtain said issues with Punjab were already resolved in 2013 and the newly-elected secretary has vowed to work in unison for the promotion of game.

Office-bearers:

President: S. M. Sibtain; Deputy President: Saqlain Zahoor Raja (Wapda); Vice-president (women) Asma Najeeb (Punjab); Honorary secretary: Ahmer Malik (Punjab); Treasurer: Tauqeer Mujahir (Sindh); Provincial vice-presidents: Saleem Ahmed (Sindh), Irfanullah Khan (Punjab), Shahzad Islam (Khyber Pakhtunkhwa); Departmental/Islamabad vice-presidents: Nominations not received. Positions to be filled later.

Published in Dawn, January 8th, 2018