KARACHI, May 8: Two former chairmen of the Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) have raised serious doubts over the procedures adopted by the PCB in electing its chairman through the governing board on Wednesday and have lamented the fact that none of the associations across the country were made part of the polls.

The incumbent PCB Chairman Zaka Ashraf was elected as chairman of the board at a Governing Board meeting held in Islamabad on Wednesday.

“This is an absolutely wrong way to elect a chairman since no election commission had been formed to conduct it, neither the voting rights given to district associations,” Lt.Gen. (r) Tauqir Zia said in an statement on Wednesday.

“When you do not take the regional and district associations into confidence, you cannot call it a fair and transparent election,” he said.

“To be frank this election does not hold any validity. The PCB should have appointed a neutral set-up before holding the election and should have allowed equal playing field to other interested candidates.”

“By inducting own choice people from places like Larkana, Dera Murad Jamali in the governing board, the PCB is trying to hoodwink people which tantamounts to adopting unfair means,” said Taquir who was at the helm of the PCB affairs from 1999 to 2003.

Another former PCB chairman Khalid Mahmood also expressed his displeasure over the manner in which the current chairman got elected by the governing board.

“Without enjoying the confidence of the general body and regional bodies you cannot truly call it a fair election,” said Khalid.

“It was the right of regional associations to get a copy of the new constitution and the elections procedure but they never got it. So how can he be called a democratically-elected chairman?”

It is interesting to note that several regional associations including Karachi, Lahore, Sialkot, Multan, Abbotabad never received the copies of the new PCB constitution nor were they informed about the elections at any stage.—APP