ISLAMABAD: Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) Chairman Imran Khan has announced that the intra-party elections will be held on June 11 under new election commissioner Senator Azam Swati.
The decision was made in a meeting of the party’s central executive committee (CEC) on Saturday. Briefing reporters after the meeting, Kaptaan said it also approved the interim constitution of the party. The meeting passed a resolution demanding the right of vote to overseas Pakistanis, he said and alleged that neither the rulers nor the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) was interested in granting the voting right to expatriate Pakistanis. He said the Supreme Court had also issued a “verdict” in this regard, adding that the PTI was considering taking the matter again to the court.
The skipper said his party would submit its proposals to the Parliamentary Committee on Electoral Reforms in its meeting on Tuesday. “If our proposals are not accepted, then we will see which forums we can use.”
The decision to hold intra-party elections has been announced by the PTI two weeks after the ECP sent written directives to the four provincial election commissions not to allot ‘bat’ as election symbol to the party candidates in any by-election because of its failure to hold intra-party polls.
The PTI had held its last intra-party polls on March 23, 2013 under election commissioner Hamid Khan and, according to its constitution, was supposed to conduct the exercise again by March this year, which it did not.
Kaptaan had dissolved all party organisations in 2015 following complaints of massive rigging in the intra-party elections and in the light of recommendations of a two-member tribunal constituted under Wajihuddin to probe the charges of rigging and irregularities in the elections.
PTI Vice Chairman Shah Mehmood Qureshi apprised the CEC about the proposed amendments to the constitution and the committee unanimously approved the amendments. The CEC meeting was attended by Shah Mehmood Qureshi, Jehangir Khan Tareen, Asad Umar, Shafqat Mehmood, Naeemul Haq, Shireen Mazari, Arif Alvi and Azam Swati.
