File photo of Gohar Ali Khan
The Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) on Thursday announced that Gohar Ali Khan was elected unopposed as the party chairman—three days ahead of the intra-party election—after his rival panel withdrew its candidacy.
“At the conclusion of the withdrawal phase of candidates/panels, there is only one candidate/panel remaining,” read a statement issued late on Thursday. It said the Federal Election Commissioner would declare the “final result” of the election after the conclusion of the process on March 3.
The notification also announced that Omar Ayub Khan was elected the general secretary of the PTI unopposed, as were Dr. Yasmin Rashid (party president for Punjab); Ali Amin Gandapur (party president Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa); and Haleem Adil Sheikh (party president Sindh). For the latter three, it said, no candidate had submitted nominations to contest polls against the.
The party said intra-party polls would be conducted in Quetta for the Balochistan president’s post for which three candidate are contesting—Amin Khan Jogazai, Dawood Shah, and Munir Ahmed Baloch.
The PTI conducted hastily-organized intra-party polls in December 2023 after the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) withdrew its election symbol. The contested polls were also dismissed by the ECP, which informed the PTI it would contest the general elections without its iconic symbol. The party challenged the decision before the Peshawar High Court, which nullified the ECP order. The electoral body then challenged that order in the Supreme Court, which upheld the ECP’s decision, declaring the intra-party polls were not in accordance with law.
Following the top court ruling, PTI candidates contested the Feb. 8 polls as independent candidates, but were denied any share in reserved seats for women and minorities despite winning 92 seats in the National Assembly alone. Last month, a majority of the PTI-backed candidates joined the Sunni Ittehad Council (SIC) in a bid to retain the reserved seats, but the matter remains pending before the ECP.