Islamabad, Dec 23 (EFE).- The Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) has stripped former Prime Minister Imran Khan’s Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) party of its election symbol ahead of the general election in February, Khan’s lawyer said Saturday.
The election symbol of the cricket bat – representing its founder Khan’s former life as a cricketer – was taken away by the ECP after it ruled that intra-party elections of the party held last month were not in accordance with the law.
“The Election Commission has declared the party elections of PTI were not conducted according to the constitution of the party,” Khan’s lawyer Naeem Panjutha told EFE.
In a written decision released late Friday, the ECP said that the PTI did not hold elections in line with its directions.
“The PTI has not complied with our directions […] and failed to hold the intra-party election in accordance with the PTI prevailing Constitution, 2019, and Election Act, 2017, and Election Rules, 2017,” the order read.
It is for the second time in less than a month that the ECP rejected PTI’s internal elections weeks ahead of the general elections that are due on Feb. 8.
Last month, it declared the PTI’s intra-party elections held in June 2022 as null and void. The regulator gave the party 20 days to hold fresh elections to become eligible for the bat symbol that it had applied for.
The PTI held the intra-party polls on Dec. 3, electing Barrister Gohar Khan as its chairman along with other office bearers.
The latest decision has removed Gohar Khan from the chairmanship of the party, a post that Imran Khan had held for the last 27 years since the party’s foundation in 1996.
Panjutha said that the ECP’s decision will be challenged in a higher court.
“The ECP’s decision is flawed, illegal, biased and a serious attack on the transparency of the elections and we will challenge it in a court,” the lawyer added.
PTI, in a statement, also criticized the verdict by the ECP saying the party was not provided with a level playing field as given to other political parties.
“The electoral watchdog proved once again through this biased and flawed decision that the commission was neither interested in conducting free and transparent elections nor it was in its priorities list,” the party said in a statement on Saturday.
PTI, which won the last general election in 2018 that brought Khan to power for the first time, also said the houses of some of its candidates have been raided recently by the police, and many of its members have alleged harassment by law enforcement agencies.
Khan’s lawyers were able to submit nomination papers for him to contest a national assembly (parliament) seat from his hometown Mianwali in southern Punjab on Friday.
He is also expected to contest for another seat from Lahore for which his papers still have to be filed with the ECP.
The former premier, who is in jail facing multiple charges, signed his nomination papers in Adiala Jail in the garrison Rawalpindi city on Thursday.
Election symbols are crucial in Pakistan where the adult literacy rate is just 58 percent, according to World Bank data.
Most of the voters, who are unable to read the candidates’ names on the ballot paper, recognize the party who they want to vote for through its symbol. EFE
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