Just before the 2008 general election, the JUI-F wit Hafiz Hussain Ahmed had observed that all political parties of Pakistan agree on having a democratic set up in the country, but not in the party itself. That dichotomy came into sharp relief once again last week when the PTI leadership, which champions ‘clean politics’, decided to defer elections to the party offices set for May.

PTI chairman Imran Khan reasoned that the party’s energies were needed for the more urgent task of pursuing the truth of Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif’s link to the legal but infamous offshore companies that Panama Papers unearthed. His son, Hussain Nawaz, has admitted owning such companies but the father has denied any connection with them.

Imran Khan, however, is not convinced and has taken to the warpath. He has issued an ultimatum to the government to constitute a commission under the Chief Justice of Pakistan by April 24, the 20th foundation day of the PTI, to probe the offshore accounts of the premier’s family or the party workers would lay siege to the Sharifs’ Raiwind estate near Lahore.

But Imran’s threats cannot camouflage the infighting in his party, which many believe forced his hands to postpone the internal elections in the PTI.

As recently as early this week, the parliamentary leader of the party in the National Assembly, Shah Mehmood Qureshi, blasted party heavyweights Jahangir Tareen and Chaudhry Mohammad Sarwar for fomenting divisions in the party ranks. Before his outburst, news stories had been doing rounds that chairman Imran Khan was deeply concerned at the “increasing groupings” in the party.

Indeed, he warned party activists through media more than once that he wouldn’t accept any alliance formed to fight the elections to party offices.

PTI lawmakers and leaders agreed in background discussions that though the Panama Papers triggered the final decision, the intra-party rifts “contributed towards postponement” of the party elections.

A well-connected PTI official said that the infighting had “turned nasty” in the run-up to the elections scheduled for May and “genuinely worried” the party chairman. “Throughout this period, complaints from rival groups led by Shah Mehmood Qureshi and Jahangir Tareen reaching the chairman’s office raised the alarm the rivalry could be turning deadly,” he said. Party workers complained of receiving threats from rival group of being denied tickets to contested offices in case they did not fall in line with the other. However, the official insisted that despite the ugly strife, Imran Khan was determined to go ahead with the elections, which would have led to the formation of parliamentary boards for choosing party candidates for the local and provincial elections.

“Intra-party election sound great,” observed an old hand in the country’s electoral politics. “But in our peculiar political culture it carries real risks.” If the PTI’s intra-party election had gone ahead, he said it would have severely divided the top party leadership at a time when the next general elections are glaring down.

“Panama Papers have proved a blessing in disguise to the PTI in the real sense,” he said.

In fact, one can surmise that much just by recalling PTI leadership’s two attempts at holding party elections. Like retired Justice Wajihuddin Ahmad, who left PTI a sour man after conducting fairly the first election in the party just before the 2013 general elections, Tasneem Noorani, who was election commissioner for the party’s now postpone election, had also to resign in disgust.

PTI’s official explanation was that Mr Noorani’s assignment was restricted to hold elections, not to define and decide the party structure. But rumours have it that the Jahangir Tareen-led group in the party was not happy with “the way” Mr. Noorani wanted to conduct the exercise and prevailed upon the leadership to stop him from having his way.

According to a senior party leader and sitting MNA, Mr Noorani believed that electing all party offices from top to bottom, from tehsil to national level, was more democratic than electing one person at each level and allowing him to pick his team.

That raises the question whether something is inherently wrong with the PTI leadership in choosing people for important tasks? What makes it pick up fight with them? Throughout 2015, Justice Ahmad and PTI leaders, led by Imran Khan, remained pitched against each other as the former wanted disciplinary action against those he had found guilty of influencing the outcome of the first intra-party election. One party leader explained that the warring sides had honesty of purpose but inadequate planning on the part of party leadership flawed the outcome of that election.

“With the passage of time our party chairman is learning to make decision after due consultations. We can hope such faux pas will not happen in future.”

Published in Dawn, April 15th, 2016