PESHAWAR: The Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf appeared to be in disarray a day before the Senate elections as Imran Khan and the party’s Chief Minister in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Pervez Khattak, were pursuing conflicting strategies to avoid an election humiliation on Thursday.

After holding a meeting with the party lawmakers and coalition partners here on Wednesday, Mr Khan said at a press conference that the PTI had no alliance with any of the opposition parties in the KP Assembly for the Senate polls. He threatened to dissolve the provincial assembly if his party’s MPAs voted for independents or opposition candidates.

The threat left some of the party MPAs, contacted by Dawn, in a state of confusion because Mr Khattak reportedly entered into an ‘electoral understanding’ with two of the opposition parties – PML-N and an estranged Qaumi Watan Party.

The QWP was thrown out of the PTI-led provincial government in 2013 on corruption charges.

While Mr Khattak is reportedly holding behind-the-scene contacts with the PML-N and QWP to cobble together an alliance for the Senate polls, Imran Khan’s announcement was seen as an attempt to thwart the chief minister’s political pragmatism.

Know more: KP Assembly’s future will be decided Friday: Imran Khan

“We will go to any extent (dissolving the assembly) to ensure fair election,” Mr Khan told reporters at the Chief Minister’s House, adding that they didn’t need votes from the PML-N and QWP under the current situation.

A senior PML-N leader told Dawn that Mr Khattak had approached N-League leaders on Tuesday night to forge an electoral alliance for the Senate polls.

According to a well-informed source, Mr Khattak was in session with an important QWP leader and both held a phone conversation with a key PML-N figure in the province for arriving at an electoral understanding.

Three PTI MPAs told Dawn that the chief minister had made back-to-back contacts with the two opposition parties on Tuesday to seal a formidable 93-vote alliance.

“This is quite strange. While Mr Khan said PTI MPAs will vote only for the candidates jointly fielded by the coalition government, Mr Khattak held secret meetings with the PML-N and QWP to devise a joint plan for the polling day,” said a PTI lawmaker.

Opposition MPAs said they had been left in a state of bewilderment by the PTI chief’s rejection of a poll alliance with opposition parties. “We won’t comment on whatever Imran Khan says, his chief minister contacted us through the QWP,” the PML-N leader said.

At the press conference, Imran Khan claimed that the government MPAs would vote for candidates nominated by the PTI.

In preparation for the Senate elections, the PTI demonstrated clear signs of desperation on Wednesday.

KP Assembly’s Speaker Asad Qaisar called upon the Election Commission to disqualify PTI’s dissenting MPA Javed Naseem. The action appears to be an effort to send a strong message to a group of around 30 PTI MPAs suspected of voting for some wealthy independent candidates vying for Senate seats from Khyber Pakhtunkhwa.

Mr Khan left no bones about his desperation about suspected voters. “PML-N, PPP, JUI-F and Qaumi Watan Party are responsible for horse-trading in the election,” he alleged.

Being the largest group in the provincial assembly with a total strength of 56 MPAs, the PTI is facing a difficult situation as a good number of its MPAs are expected to vote for candidates other than PTI’s.

Mr Khan accused Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif of promoting the culture of vote-buying and said the PTI was ready to go back to the National Assembly if the PML-N brought the 22nd amendment bill to pave way for open voting in Senate polls. “Nawaz (Sharif) did a drama by not bringing the proposed bill,” he said.

The PTI chief said Nawaz Sharif, Asif Ali Zardari and Maulana Fazlur Rehman didn’t believe in open voting because they wanted to make money. He said some people used the name of Islam for politics but at the same time justified horse-trading.

Published in Dawn March 5th , 2015

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