ISLAMABAD: Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) announced on Thursday that it would hold intra-party elections again on February 5.
The announcement for the fresh intra-party polls comes after the party suffered a major blow – losing its electoral symbol of a cricket bat after a Supreme Court verdict nullified the first round held earlier.
The party also replaced its election commissioner Niazullah Niazi with Rauf Hassan, who in a statement released the official schedule of the intra-party elections.
The second attempt will be aimed at proving to the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) that polls within the party are transparent.
All PTI members registered till January 31, 2024, will be allowed to vote for their preferred panel or chairman candidate at designated locations across Pakistan.
The party members would also be able to cast their vote through the “Rabta Application Intra-Party Election Module”.
All details of the panel participating in the intra-party election will be available on the official website of PTI and the Rabta app, along with the procedure of polls as per the Election Rules 2020.
The voters will be allowed to vote from 10am to 4pm. Election venues and the date of the appellate tribunal will be announced.
The nomination papers can be obtained from February 01 to 2, from PTI’s central secretariat or the party website with a deadline for paper submission set for 10 pm on February 02.
The nominees will be able to submit their nomination papers at central and provincial secretariats physically and also digitally via email.
The nomination papers will undergo scrutiny on February 3; with objections in case of rejection will be accepted the same day till 10 pm.
Following the smooth submission of the nomination papers, the list of all the final panels participating in the intra-party election will be published on the PTI website at 4 pm on February 4.
PTI will officially announce the results of the intra-party election on February 6.
The PTI had conducted its intra-party elections in December last year. The party faced severe backlash after 14 members objected to not being granted the opportunity to contest the elections.
The ECP on December 22 invalidated PTI’s intra-party polls. The PTI later approached the Peshawar High Court (PHC) against the ECP’s order and the court while deeming the ECP order as “illegal”, returned the bat symbol to PTI.
The ECP later moved the Supreme Court against the PHC’s order to return PTI its electoral symbol.
In another setback for the PTI, the apex court on January 13 set aside the January 10 order of the PHC and effectively deprived the party of its iconic election symbol in a major blow to the former ruling party ahead of the February 8 general elections.
Copyright Business Recorder, 2024
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