ISLAMABAD: Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) has announced to conduct intra-party elections on March 3, weeks after the embattled party was deprived of its iconic electoral symbol bat.
Polling would be held at the party’s central office and all four provincial secretariats. According to the schedule, candidates can submit the nomination papers on February 23 and 24.
Scrutiny of papers would be conducted on February 25 and a decision on the papers would be announced on February 27.
After a long battle and marathon hearings in the run-up to the February 8 general elections, the PTI was stripped of its symbol last month when the Supreme Court upheld the Election Commission of Pakistan’s decision to declare the party’s internal polls as “unconstitutional”.
In its detailed verdict, the apex court had ruled that a political party must never be deprived of its election symbol for some minor violation, but forsaking intra-party elections was a major violation of law and the Constitution.
The verdict forced hundreds of party members to contest the elections as independent candidates with different electoral symbols and deprived the PTI of its right to reserved seats.
Many experts and journalists have expressed concerns over the decision.
The Human Rights Commission of Pakistan had said: “Denying a political party its electoral symbol not only significantly hinders its ability to freely participate in elections, it also effectively disenfranchises its voters, who rely on electoral symbols to choose their representatives,” it said.
