LAHORE, July 29: The Jamiat Ulema Pakistan (JUP) on Monday elected Maulana Shah Ahmad Noorani unopposed central president of party.
Similarly, Prof Syed Shah Faridul Haq and Gen K M Azhar Khan (retired) were elected unopposed senior vice-president and secretary-general, respectively.
The elections were conducted by election committee headed by Ghulam Farid Hazarvi. Muhammad Sharif Sarki from Sindh and Haji Siddique Qadri from the NWFP were members of the committee.
JUP president Maulana Noorani later nominated different office-bearers of the party and got them approved from the JUP central executive soon after the elections.
The nominated members were; Pir Ejaz Ahmad Hashmi, Sahibzada Muhammad Akram Shah and Syed Muhammad Amir Shah (vice-presidents); Haji Aslam Khan Rokari, Sardar Muhammad Khan Leghari, Muhammad Ayub Jani and Hashim Siddiqui (joint secretaries); Maulana Syed Shabbir Ahmad Hashmi (deputy secretary-general); Haq Nawaz (secretary law affairs); Muhammad Ahmad Siddique (secretary information); Chaudhry Muhammad Yaqoob Engineer (secretary finance); Farida Ahmad (chairperson women affairs); Syed Hafiz Qaiser (secretary youth affairs); Dr Javed Awan (chief organizer); Mufti Hidayatullah Pasroori (chairman religious affairs); Chaudhry Amjad Cheema (secretary industrial affairs) and Ahfaazul Karim Khan Burki (secretary agriculture affairs).
The election results were announced by Maulana Noorani himself at a Press conference at Jamia Masjid Muhammadia Rizvia, Firdous Market, on Monday.
Speaking at a news conference, Maulana Noorani, who is also chairman of the Mutahida Majlis-i-Amal (MMA), asked the government to re-constitute election commission and make it powerful to hold general elections in a free, fair and transparent manner on Oct 10.
He said the MMA had also rejected the proposed constitutional amendments package. He said the present government had not made any constitutional amendment during its two-and-a-half years tenure and then suddenly introduced constitutional amendments. Now, he said the Musharraf government’s mandate was to hold free, fair and transparent elections and allow the new parliament to make constitutional amendments.
Answering a question, Maulana Noorani said the MMA six parties had already finalized a criteria to decide about the candidates to contest elections. Currently, he said, provinces were working on the project and expected to give recommendations till Aug 3. He said the recommendations would be sent to the MMA central parliamentary board till Aug 7 for final nominations decision on Aug 10.
He said that he was not contesting national assembly elections as the JUP members wanted him to contest Senate elections. He said that he was also unable to visit his constituency because he was touring all around the country as MMA president.
Answering a question, he said the MMA’s political liaison committee had been given a mandate to meet all political parties’ leaders. “The MMA will act on the recommendations of this committee to consider for alliance during the general elections,” he added.
He said that every Pakistani had a right to contest elections and so was the right of Nawaz Sharif and Benazir Bhutto.
Answering another question, Maulana Noorani said the government was afraid of political activities. He said every individual and political party had the right to take part in political activities, adding the government must allow such activities.
Answering a question about the credibility of the general elections, he said it would be pathetic if the government would rig the elections. He also said that the government must understand that an organized protest movement would be launched by the people if the government tried to rig the elections.
Maulana Noorani said that the MMA was trying that there should be no confrontation between religious political parties and the government because the outside forces would take the benefit of this confrontation. He said the government should ensure free, fair and transparent elections because people wanted to strengthen and bring in prosperity in the country.