Chief Election Commissioner (CEC) Sikandar Sultan Raja on Tuesday urged the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) not to hold the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) responsible for its own mistakes, noting it had not held intra-party polls for five years and had been given another chance to do so by the electoral body.
Heading a five-member ECP bench hearing challenges against the PTI’s most recent intra-party polls, in which Gohar Khan was elected the new party chairman, he reiterated that the former ruling party’s polls from earlier this year were invalid.
During proceedings, PTI lawyer Ali Zafar read out a Peshawar High Court (PHC) order barring the ECP from issuing any final ruling in the case until Dec. 19, when the court would take up the case again. To this, the CEC stressed the ECP was empowered to look into the case. The ECP’s DG law also read out the relevant constitutional provision and a Supreme Court judgement that had empowered the ECP to regulate political parties.
The new PTI chairman—also a lawyer—and Zafar argued that the party had complied with the ECP’s order to hold elections despite reservations over its legal validity. They said the required polls were conducted and their results submitted to the ECP within the time stipulated. As such, they argued, the party should be allotted the cricket bat as its symbol for the general elections due on Feb. 8, 2024.
Zafar further maintained the ECP was required to certify the election results within a week of their submission, adding the deadline—Dec. 9—had already passed. He also argued the ECP could not treat the matter like a court case.
The petitioners, including PTI founding Akbar S. Babar who has alleged the latest intra-party polls violated the party’s constitution, requested the ECP to provide access to the party’s election documents. Granting the requests, the CEC directed them to file applications to acquire the required record and then adjourned proceedings until Dec. 14 when the bench would hear arguments from both sides.