KARACHI: The long-overdue annual election of the Karachi Bar Association (KBA) for its 2026 office-bearers, scheduled to be held on Thursday, was cancelled once again after most of candidates alleged “rigging”.

The election had been postponed multiple times since last December. However, after months of legal battle, the Pakistan Bar Council directed that the election be held on Thursday and for that purpose the Sindh Bar Council (SBC) had appointed Abdul Sattar Luhrani as the election commissioner on May 2.

On Thursday, the election process became embroiled in controversy barely an hour after polling began when candidates heard that pre-marked ballot papers with the stamp of the election commissioner had allegedly been recovered from a polling booth in District West.

Subsequently, a large number of lawyers, along with the candidates reached the polling booth, where representatives of various candidates claimed that they had recovered “pre-marked ballot papers”.

Candidates announce boycott, regret process not held in ‘free and fair’ manner; SBC cancels polling ‘due to unavoidable circumstances’; SHCBA president claims he is eyewitness to ‘irregularities’

After the recovery such ballots from one polling booth, a majority of the candidates announced a boycott of the polls.

Chanting slogans, they rushed to different polling booths where, they alleged, more “pre-marked ballot papers were recovered from sealed blue-colour bags”.

Dawn has seen one of the alleged 13-page ballot papers in which “selective candidates” had already been pre-marked for positions from president to members of managing committee.

Later, after allegations of “rigging” in the election, the Sindh Bar Council announced that they had “cancelled / suspended” the election “until further orders due to unavoidable circumstances”.

They added that if anyone was found involved in any irregularity, an inquiry would be conducted in accordance with the law.

Speaking to Dawn, Aamir Nawaz Warraich, who is contesting for the president’s seat for the third time, said lawyers had struggled for a long time to ensure the elections were held, but regretted that the process was not conducted in a “free and fair” manner.

Showing one of the alleged pre-marked ballot papers, he said taking away the mandate from over 8,000 KBA members on election day was unacceptable.

He demanded that the a six-member election committee, appointed by the SBC, should be removed, and the last cabinet of the KBA — except those participating in the election — should take over and decide how fresh polls are to be conducted.

When asked who could be involved in the alleged rigging, Mr Warra­ich said it was not yet clear who was resp­onsible, but added that court staff as well as the returning officer appointed by the SBC were present there. However, he ter­med the entire conduct “condemnable”.

On the other hand, his opponent, GM Korai — who is contesting for the president’s seat — told Dawn that he wanted the election process to continue, claiming that he was winning the polls.

He said he had proposed that if anyone had objections regarding a specific polling booth, that booth should be excluded while polling at the remaining booths should continue.

Referring to his opponents, he said candidates should not “run away” from elections and alleged, without naming anyone, that a “conspiracy” had deliberately been hatched to prevent the polls from taking place as “some candidates” were allegedly losing and wanted to “build a narrative in their favour”.

“Whoever conducts the election, whet­her the judiciary or anyone else, it should be transparent,” he said, alleging that his opponents were boycotting the election because they were “losing”.

When asked regarding the recovery of pre-mar­ked ballot papers, Kor­ai alleged that ballot pap­ers had been stolen in Dec­ember last year and they might have been used.

Responding to a question that the recovered ballot papers allegedly carried the stamp mark of the recently appointed election commission, he accused his opponents of having access to the stamp beforehand.

The president of the Sindh High Court Bar Association, Haseeb Jamali, who was present at the City Courts, expressed his anger over the situation and claimed that he was an eyewitness to the alleged irregularities.

He added from at least eight polling stations, ballot papers in bags carrying the “same pre-marked candidates” had been recovered.

He announced that a general body meeting had been called on Friday (today), where lawyers would decide their next course of action so that such “undemocratic actions” could be brought to an end.

Meanwhile, Rashid Rajar, a member of the SBC, expressed disappointment over the alleged “rigging” and said he had nev­er witnessed such irregularities in the KBA elections in his entire professional life.

Published in Dawn, May 8th, 2026