ISLAMABAD: A day after issuing orders against speaking publicly about the party’s internal affairs, Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf (PTI) Chairman Imran Khan suspended the membership of retired Justice Wajihuddin Ahmad on Wednesday for violating party discipline.

As head of the PTI’s election tribunal, Justice Ahmad had found some key leaders involved in using unfair means in polls for party posts. Since March, he had been demanding removal of some top PTI office-bearers, including General Secretary Jahangir Tareen, but Mr Khan didn’t remove them.

In the meantime, the recommendations of the tribunal were leaked, casting aspersions on the role played by Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Chief Minister Pervez Khattak and other leaders. In response, Mr Khan announced that the tribunal had been dissolved.

Last Friday, Justice Ahmad had a three-hour meeting with Mr Khan and he also attended Sunday’s gathering in Islamabad that was attended by almost all PTI leaders.

However, the retired judge continued to interact with the media and to criticise the party and its leaders.

On Tuesday, the PTI chairman warned all party members against taking its internal issues to the media and said the membership of anyone who violated the order would be cancelled.

In a statement issued on Wednesday, Mr Khan was quoted as saying: “Justice (retd) Ahmad has openly defied party discipline even after the issuance of the chairman’s notification of Aug 4, clearly stating that anyone discussing internal party matters publicly will be suspended immediately from party membership. Defying the chairman’s notification, Justice Ahmad has also declared that he will continue to air internal party matters in public.”

The PTI chief said he had held a detailed meeting with Justice Ahmad for whom he had the highest respect. He said no democratic political party allowed its members to discuss its internal matters in the public domain, especially on the media.

“A democratic culture within a political party should not be mistaken for freewheeling anarchy. All parties function within a structured discipline and party forums exist to air grievances and seek redress. Even in western democracies, no political party allows its members to go public with internal issues and hurl baseless allegations against its leadership.”

He said the PTI was the only party in the country that had held elections for every tier of its organisation, set up a tribunal to examine petitions about them and then agreed to hold the polls again because of lapses in the first exercise held in 2013.

“However, nowhere in the democratic world does a tribunal attribute to itself the role of judge, juror and executioner. This is untenable,” the statement said.

Mr Khan claimed that the former judge’s act of maligning senior party leaders with baseless allegations had damaged the PTI more than the combined force of its opponents ever could.

Published in Dawn, August 6th, 2015

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