Karachi: Altaf Shakoor, Chairman of the Pasban Democratic Party (PDP), has voiced significant concerns regarding the transparency and fairness of the recent Pakistan Engineering Council (PEC) elections, calling for immediate reelections.

According to Pasban Democratic Party, Shakoor highlighted numerous issues with the electoral process, particularly the failure to conduct elections online, which led to reliance on the National Database and Registration Authority (NADRA). Unfortunately, NADRA’s system experienced a four-hour outage specifically during the PEC elections, causing many engineers to leave without voting after long waits. Shakoor expressed suspicions of a conspiracy to influence the election outcomes, pointing out that the outage did not affect other NADRA operations.

Shakoor also criticized the influence of a “powerful lobby” aiming to control the PEC due to its substantial budget, which he claims is targeted by a corrupt mafia. He revealed that only 10 percent of the total votes were cast nationally, with an even lower turnout of five percent in Karachi, from a pool of 368,000 registered voters.

Further, Shakoor has appealed to the elected officials to abstain from taking their oaths, arguing that they lack a legitimate mandate from the engineering community. He insists on the need for a fair reelection to restore integrity within the PEC.

Altaf Shakoor, an NED University graduate and former student union president, has been a vocal advocate for transparency and fairness in professional governance.