LAHORE, Jan 22: Pakistan Olympic Association (POA) president Gen (retd) Arif Hasan has assured during a news conference that the elections of the association, due on Feb 4, will be held transparently, since it will be conducted under charters and monitoring of the representatives of the International Olympic Committee (IOC) and the Olympic Council of Asia (OCA).
Gen Hasan, who himself is a candidate for the post of the president for third consecutive term, said that the rules regarding the elections had already been dispatched to all the national sports federations, according to which the nomination papers will be made available 14 days before the day of elections.
However, he added that Pakistan Hockey Federation (PHF) president Qasim Zia, one of the candidates for the post of president, came to the POA office and demanded nomination papers on Jan 20, just one day before the starting date of collection of nomination papers from the POA office.
“Qasim might have misunderstood the date,” said Gen Hasan, who also maintained that PHF secretary Asif Bajwa had already been informed about the whole process on the morning of Jan 20, but in the afternoon, the PHF president with some members of the press came to the POA office and demanded nomination papers.
Gen Hasan offered no comments when asked if Qasim deliberately tried to create a scene.
Stating that those who are contesting elections are raising baseless issue of rigging, the POA president said representatives of IOC and OCA would be in Lahore to monitor the elections besides an independent three-member election commission.
Gen Hasan said he was quite hopeful of winning the elections.
He added that he had served the POA for eight years and during this period besides having some achievements, he had also made some mistakes and during his next tenure he would try not to repeat them.
“My eight years in office enabled Pakistan to achieve record seven posts in the last election of the OCA, and with the same experience, I will get more benefits for the country,” GenHasan maintained.
Pakistan Volleyball Federation president Chaudhry Mohammad Yaqoob and Pakistan Baseball Federation president Shaukat Javed among others were present on the occasion.