LAHORE: In a disappointing development, the elections at the district football association level in Pakistan could not start on Wednesday due to a blunder in the formatting system for making the list of the presidents and secretaries contesting the polls.

The FIFA-appointed Pakistan Football Federation Normalisation Committee (PFFNC) had planned to start the elections in 129 districts of Punjab, Sindh, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Islamabad on Wednesday, which were to be completed by Saturday.

However, to one’s utter surprise it emerged that due to a fault in the formatting system in preparing the list of contesting candidates the names of the contesting presidents had been included in the list of the secretaries and vice versa.

When the candidates contesting the elections made a complaint in this regard to the PFFNC, it admitted the mistake and explained that it was a fault in formatting the list and added that a new list would be uploaded soon.

Several contesting candidates including Rana Zia (Punjab), Ali Bahar (Sindh) and Shaukat Ali (Islamabad) objected to the delay in the elections. Dr Mohammad Ali and Dr Khalid from Balochistan province also protested over non-announcement of the dates for the elections in their province.

They also noted that the PFFNC was required to upload the list of 129 districts for the elections but it could upload the list of only 43 districts. They also protested over the use of WhatsApp for casting vote instead of the appointment of a convener.

When contacted by Dawn, an PFFNC official on the condition of anonymity acknowledged that it was pure negligence on the part of the employees concerned, and added that the elections would now start from March 14.

The official further said that the WhatsApp system was being used for the elections with the permission of FIFA, saying it is quite a safe system to cast votes.

“Keeping in view the prevailing security situation of the country, the PFF did not want to make gatherings. Therefore, the WhatsApp system was chosen [for elections],” he stated.

“In the first phase, the elections will be held in 73 out of 129 districts of the above-mentioned provinces and capital,” the official added.

It may be mentioned here that the PFFNC is already far behind the March 15, 2024 deadline set by FIFA for completing the elections process from district to province level. PFFNC’s failure to do so will result in an appropriate action by the game’s global governing body.

It is learnt that the PFFNC — which was appointed by FIFA in 2019 primarily to hold elections — has already requested the governing body to extend its tenure till mid of June.

Published in Dawn, March 14th, 2024