PTI Chairman Gohar Khan
The Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) on Saturday conducted intra-party elections in which all the contesting candidates ran unopposed, with Imran Khan’s handpicked Barrister Gohar Ali Khan appointed the new party chairman.
The PTI was forced to conduct fresh intra-party elections after the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) last month directed it to do so within 20 days or risk losing its electoral symbol—the bat—in the upcoming general elections. Announcing the results, PTI Chief Election Commissioner Niazullah Niazi confirmed that Gohar was elected unopposed in the intra-party polls.
He further announced that Omar Ayub Khan had been elected the PTI’s central general secretary; Ali Amin Gandapur the party’s Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa president; Dr. Yasmin Rashid the Punjab president; Haleem Adil Sheikh the Sindh president; and Munir Ahmed Baloch the president of the party’s Balochistan chapter.
Additionally, former KP minister Atif Khan has been elected as Peshawar region president, and Ali Asghar as provincial general secretary.
The party’s central polling center was established in Peshawar, with party leaders claiming over 20 million members were eligible to vote in the polls. Earlier, the party had announced that votes could be cast either via an online app or through a ballot paper at the KP capital’s polling center. It remains unclear how many people cast their votes.
Addressing media and party workers after securing the top slot, Gohar reiterated that he would only serve as chairman so long as Imran Khan’s conviction prevented him from leading the party. Once the conviction was set aside, he maintained, he would step down and Khan would resume his duties as chairman. “Imran Khan was the chairman, is still the chairman, and will remain chairman in perpetuity,” he vowed. He also urged Chief Justice of Pakistan (CJP) Qazi Faez Isa to take notice of the alleged discrimination against the party and ensure it a level playing field to conduct its campaign for the upcoming general elections.
Earlier this week, announcing that Khan had picked Gohar to lead the PTI in his absence, PTI Senator Ali Zafar said this was a “caretaker” position.
Hinting at the controversy that might arise over the unopposed elections, PTI founding member Akbar S. Babar on Friday raised reservations over the intra-party polls, hinting that he would raise the issue with the ECP. Speaking with media after visiting the party’s secretariat in Islamabad, he said he had asked to be provided nomination papers, the voter list and the election rules.
Claiming the staff had told him none of these existed, he regretted the intra-party polls were merely an “exercise” to prevent the ECP from withdrawing the party’s electoral symbol. “Unfortunately, this is not even an election,” he claimed.