The Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) had announced that the elections for the Chairman post will be held next week on June 27.
Issuing a statement, the board said that the election for the chairman’s post would be held at its headquarters in Lahore and the schedule will be issued after receiving nominations from the departments and service organisations.
“The election of the PCB Chair will be held in a fair and transparent manner whilst adopting due process and ensuring completion of all legal formalities,” acting chairman and Election Commissioner Ahmed Shehzad Farooq Rana said in a statement issued by the PCB.
The PCB, in the initial statement, had said that the polls will be held on June 28 however, it later shifted the date to June 27 after the government announced a public holiday on Wednesday.
The board members include PCB Patron Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif’s nominees Muhammad Zaka Ashraf and Mustafa Ramday, National Bank of Pakistan, State Bank of Pakistan, Sui Northern Gas Pipeline Limited (SNGPL), Sui Southern Gas Company (SSGC), president Larkana Region, president Dera Murad Jamali Region, president Bahawalpur Region and president Hyderabad Region.
Notably, the PCB chairman’s post was a bone of contention between the ruling coalition partners Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) and Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) as the latter wanted former PCB chairman Zaka Ashraf to return to the post, while the former wanted now defunct Management Committee Chairman Najam Sethi to continue his job.
However, the matter now seems resolved as PPP’s nominee Ashraf is set to return as PCB chairman after Sethi pulled out of the race.
Earlier this week, Sethi had announced he was not running for the post as he did not want to be a “bone of contention” between the partners in the coalition government and had cited the atmosphere of uncertainty and instability as inconducive for the board.
“I don’t want to be a bone of contention between Asif Zardari and Shehbaz Sharif,” he had tweeted on Tuesday.