SAHIWAL: More than 17,500 registered members servingaslecturers,assistantprofessors,associate professors and professors in Punjab’s 730 public sector colleges will elect the leadership of the Punjab Professors and Lecturers Association (PPLA) at provincial, divisional and local levels on Thursday (today).
The election, to be held under the PPLA constitution, will be the eighth electoral exercise in the association’s 35 years long history.
In a rare development, two women candidates are simultaneously contesting the association’s top office of provincial president for the 2026-28 term alongside a male contender.
In addition to the provincial and divisional elections, over 4,000 faculty members in male and female colleges across Punjab will elect their local representatives on the same day.
The PPLA election commission Chairman Rana Nahar told Dawn that polling would be conducted at each college, where the principal would serve as the presiding officer. Every registered college teacher of each college will cast vote at three levels-provincial, divisional and local.
Sources added three major groups are contesting the elections -Ittehad-i-Asatiza Pakistan (IAP), Tehrik-e-Asatiza Punjab (TAP) and Nawa-i-Asatiza Punjab (NAP). The incumbent provincial president, Ms Faiza Rana of IAP, is running for a second consecutive term after creating a history in 2024 as the first woman elected president of the PPLA.
Meanwhile, TAP, the teachers’ wing of Jamaat-iIslami Pakistan, has fielded Dr Fakhera Noreen of Rawalpindi Division as its presidential candidate.
The Tehrik Asatiza has nominated a woman for the association’s highest office. The third candidate in the race is Prof Nadeem Ashrafi of NAP.
In the previous election, his group secured less than 1.2pc of the total votes, with the overwhelming majority shared by IAP and TAP.
TheIAPwoneight divisionsofPunjabandProvincial Election while TAP won only two divisionsSahiwal and Rawalpindi.