LAHORE: The Election Commissioner of the Pakistan Cricket Board has adopted a novel way of conducting elections at district level across five regions with polls to be held first before appeals against the successful candidates are heard — a move that is against past practices of the country’s cricket governing body.

Elections across districts in Islamabad, Larkana, Rawalpindi, Bahwalpur and Hyderabad region are penciled in for March 22 but appeals, which are to be filed before PCB’s Board of Governors — which does not exist at present — will be heard on April 3. In the last elections of the PCB, held in 2017, appeals against the elections of the office-bearers of the District Cricket Associations were before the polling date.

With the BoG currently not in place with an Interim Management Committee functioning in its place, it appears there is no forum available to listen to appeals with the notification issued by the EC saying that appeals are to be heard by the BoG.

A potential candidate for these elections, on the condition of anonymity, expressed his reservations over the process. “It is unfair as a sword will be hanging even after winning the election as the PCB may use its own liking and disliking against a successful candidate,” he told Dawn.

A PCB spokesperson told Dawn on Friday that an “appeal against the final list of candidates is mandatory”. “It has been mentioned in the Note given below of the schedule that the result of polling is subject to decision of the appeal,” added the spokesperson. “It means that after preparing the final list, any candidate file an appeal, we will not announce the polling result until its decision. Nevertheless it is very rare to drop any name of the candidate as the eligible criteria of the candidate is easy.”

The PCB plans to hold elections in 50 districts in the first phase before holding polls in the remaining ones with 79 days having elapsed since the interim management committee led by Najam Sethi, which was given 120 days to complete the BoG according to the PCB constitution of 2014.

With the constitution of 2014 to be followed, elections are to be held on voters’ lists from that year but there have been reports that in many districts not only have new clubs been added but some old ones have been excluded.

Published in Dawn, March 11th, 2023