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ISLAMABAD: The dissident members of the Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf, who have formed their own group, on Sunday accused PTI chairman Imran Khan of making plans to hold ‘sham’ intra-party elections in violation of the party’s own constitution.
In a statement released to the media, main leader of the PTI Founders Group Akbar S. Babar said that after the Election Commission of Pakistan had refused to issue the PTI election symbol for contesting general elections, plans were afoot to hold sham intra-party elections to fulfil the legal requirement on paper only.
The former central vice-president of the PTI, who developed differences with Imran Khan over the internal corruption issue, reminded the latter of his promise to make the PTI a truly democratic party where workers elected their leadership.
“Any attempt to hold sham intra-party elections would be resisted by the PTI workers. Such elections would further damage the credibility of PTI’s demand for free and fair national elections,” he warned.
Mr Babar stated that how could those who had been expelled from the party by retired Justice Wajihuddin Ahmed’s election tribunal for rigging the last intra-party elections be expected to hold transparent elections this time around. He said any attempt by Imran Khan’s “ATMs to elect their cronies through a fraudulent intra-party election process” would be resisted at all legal and political forums by the PTI workers. He said they could no longer tolerate “political turncoats, qabza mafia and land grabbers” to ruin a political party formed to bring about change in the country.
He stated that Mr Khan demanded implementation of all recommendations of the judicial commission formed after the 2014 sit-in to hold free and fair national elections, but when it came to intra-party elections, he refused to implement the orders of the PTI election tribunal headed by Justice Wajihuddin and the recommendations made by the former PTI CEC Tasnim Noorani.
Published in Dawn, April 10th, 2017
