ISLAMABAD: The trend of the National Press Club (NPC) election results showed that the Journalist Panel is all set to sweep the polls held on Monday for the year 2025-26.

According to the results announced so far, Azhar Jatoi and Nayyer Ali of the Journalist Panel have been elected president and secretary of the NPC, bagging 1,090 and 1,063 votes, respectively, thus retaining their offices which they had won in the previous elections as well.

Their opponents Shakeel Qarar and Dr Furqan Rao of the Azad Panel got 716 and 645 votes, respectively.

Waqar Abbasi of the Journalist Panel has been declared elected as finance secretary by getting 1,065 votes while his rival Harmeet Singh was able to bag 695 votes.

Besides this, the Journalist Panel also bagged both the Governing Body seats reserved for women as Asia Kausar and Faiza Shah Kazmi were elected unopposed.

Unlike previous years, the losing candidates acknowledged the results and greeted the winners.

The elections had become a one-sided contest for the Journalist Panel after the decision of the National Journalist Panel led by Sagheer Chaudhry to withdraw all its candidates in support of the Journalist Panel led by Afzal Butt.

The other contesting panels were the Azad Panel led by Shakeel Qarar and the Bedar Penal led by Dr Sadia Kamal.

The election committee headed by Asim Qadeer Rana had devised a new system for verification of voters before entering the polling area after receiving “stamped slips” from the political agents.

Similarly, for the first time in the NPC election history, the counting of votes was relayed live on a giant screen installed on the NPC premises to ensure transparency of the counting process.

Losing secretary candidate Dr Furqan Rao addressed the gathering along with the members of the winning panel and expressed gratitude to the NPC members for making the whole exercise competitive and coming out in a large number to cast their votes despite Ramazan.

Earlier, Nayyer Ali in her address said the NPC had become a symbol of women empowerment as she was the only female to become secretary of any press club in the country. She lauded Dr Sadia Kamal for contesting the election for the slot of NPC president.

In the first phase, the election committee announced the results of president, secretary and finance secretary.

The results of other seats will be announced by Wednesday noon (today).

Published in Dawn, March 19th, 2025