Seems, Pakistan Tehreek-e-Pakistan has finally accepted the minus-one formula as on Saturday it elected a new chairman for the party after the former prime minister Imran Khan pulled himself out of the election.
PTI’s Chief Election Commissioner Niazullah Niazi announced the results, saying Barrister Gohar was elected unopposed. Barrister Gohar Ali Khan, a lawyer of Imran Khan was nominated by him [Khan] to contest for the top slot.
Sher Afzal Marwat, senior vice president PTI said Imran Khan decided not to contest the election due to his conviction in the Toshakhana case. The PTI leaders, who were claiming Imran Khan was their redline, were seen nowhere after the replacement of the party’s chairman.
It is also being assumed that due to strategy, Imran Khan pulled himself out of the election as according to sources, ECP was thinking not of allotting Bat as an electoral symbol to the party. The controversy over the party’s top slot gained momentum after the alleged audio leak of Bushra Bibi and Imran’s Khan counsel Latif Khosa.
The audio leak showed the differences within the family, but they were dispelled by Aleema Khan herself.
Interestingly, PTI founding leader Akbar S Babar has announced that he will move the ECP, challenging the intra-party elections. “In view of irregularities in the PTI intra-party elections, a petition will be submitted to the Election Commission,” he said.
The minus-one formula in the political parties of Pakistan is not new, we have seen what happened to MQM-founding chief and the former three-time prime minister Nawaz Sharif.
But here the question arises of how the PTI will perform under the leadership of Barrister Gohar as the elections are also on the head and the unity in the party when Imran Khan is in jail.
