Democrats Panel wins offices of NPC’s President, Secretary in a closely-contested election

2026-03-14 - 23:13

How the ‘unthinkable’ happened for Journalists Panel! The ruling Journalists Panel’s (JP) control over the National Press Club (NPC) for the last twenty years came to an end Friday evening, when it was announced by the election committee that the Democrats Panel had won the top seats of President and Secretary in the NPC election 2026. The joint opposition’s candidate (for president) Abdul Razzaq Sial (1067) defeated Nayyer Ali (1052) while on the secretary’s seat Rao Furqan Ahmed (1024) outclassed Khalid Mehmood (1002). It was a closely-held contest and each vote was counted many times and took the election committee 40 hours to compile and finalize the results. Two vice presidents of the Democrats Panel Usman Khan and Bashir Chaudhry also grabbed victory upsetting the apple cart of the Journalists Panel which otherwise had been claiming that it was once again going to sweep the elections. However, the ‘unthinkable’ happened and it took the Joint Opposition’s Democrats Panel—backed by eminent journalists such as Haji Nawaz Raza, Shakeel Qarar, Dr Sadia Kamal, Tariq Usmani, Matiullah Jan, Farooq Faisal, and many others— to clinch victory from the JP’s jaws after almost two decades. Supported by Afzal Butt, a senior journalist and currently President of the Pakistan Federal Union of Journalists (PFUJ), JP had been calling the shots for the last twenty years, partially due to its monumental achievement back in early 2005-06 when it secured residential plots (Media Town 2-km off the Islamabad Expressway) for the journalists of the twin cities from the then Chief Minister of the Punjab, Chaudhry Pervaiz Elahi. Since then, JP had been the first and the foremost choice of the twin cities’ journalists. However, as the time passed by things began to deteriorate and critical voices were raised objecting to what they called the JP’s pro-government/establishment policies, absence of a healthy environment at the NPC that could encourage debate, criticism and lively discussions on political or international situation and above all poor quality of food served there and low hygiene. Besides, some members of the NPC had time and again pointed out that opposition leaders and civil society were not provided equal opportunity to hold press conferences or convey their point of view as compared to the pro-government voices. The JP however, has dismissed this and other charges saying the Press Club was always open to all the public and private political and non-political organizations, civil society and representatives. The JP hierarchy also came under severe criticism regarding ‘inclusion of non-journalists’ in the valid journalists’ list. The newly-elected President Abdul Razzaq Sial and Secretary, Dr Furqan Rao in their victory speech at the result day promised to herald a new era and put in order all the messed-up things. We shall seek advice and counsel from our senior journalist colleagues with regard to running the NPC on the same lines with Karachi Press Club and improve its performance, said Rao Furqan. Matiullah Jan also congratulated the president, secretary and the entire Democrats Panel for finally realizing the dream of the ‘regime change.’ He urged the newly elected NPC team to put aside differences and work in union. Your priority however should be to ensure biometric identification of each council member of the NPC and purge this august forum of the fake members, he stressed. Two prominent candidates who could not make it from the Democrats Panel are Asad Toor—for vice president—he secured 974 votes to finish fourth among six candidates and the widow of late Arshad Sharif, Javeria Siddique (924) who lost to Sehrish Qureshi (1049) for Vice President (Female).