PTI hires new media relations and lobbying firm in US

LONDON: Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaaf (PTI) US leader Atif Khan has confirmed that the party has hired a new public relations and a new lobbying firm to monitor Pakistan general elections and to engage with the US and international media.

Atif Khan, who was recently appointed PTI Core Committee member along with Sajjad Burki by former PM Imran Khan, revealed this while speaking at an X (formerly Twitter) online session with Sher Afzal Marwat and Dr Moeed Pirzada. He has previously served as a member of Imran Khan Task Force & as a focal person for the Ministry of Overseas Pakistanis during the PTI government.

Atif Khan said that PTI USA has signed a three-month contract with a PR firm to monitor and observe elections in Pakistan which are scheduled to take place on February 8, 2024. He said the PR firm will work to highlight any irregularities in the elections and share them with American media. He said: “In the last few days we have shared with the US media, human rights groups and observer groups the incidents of paper snatching, abductions, kidnappings, and other rights violations. Our PR firm is working closely with 10 organisations.”Atif Khan said that, separately, a new lobbying firm has been hired for “election monitoring and human rights violations’’. He said: “We are signing a contract with the lobbying firm. This will also be for three months. We are working closely through our overseas volunteer workers. We will make all that is happening in Pakistan world news”, adding that “Unfortunately, the US administration/US State Department sits on the fence when it comes to human rights violations in Pakistan.”

Speculation has grown whether the newly hired US-based PR firm and the lobbying group are behind Imran Khan’s article published in The Economist in which the former premier accused the US government and the Pakistani military of ousting him from power for his refusal to allow foreign bases inside Pakistan.

The PTI had previously hired an American consultancy firm headed by Robert Laurent Grenier, the ex-CIA station chief in Islamabad. While in power in July 2021, Robert Laurent Grenier’s firm called Grenier Consulting LLC was recruited to lobby for the party. The contract was signed secretly by Iftikhar Durrani with the firm in July 2021 under the “supervision of senior [PTI] party officials and under the direction of Pakistan government officials” for $25,000 per month. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Law and Justice Ministry said later on that the contract was signed without their involvement even though the dues in the contract were to be paid by the Government of Pakistan.

Grenier is a CIA veteran who worked as the spy agency’s top counterterrorism official from 2004 to 2006. He was also the CIA station chief in Islamabad during the US invasion of Afghanistan in 2001.

After the removal of the PTI government in April 2022, PTI-USA Inc, a subsidiary of the PTI, hired another lobbying firm Fenton/Arlook to provide “public relations services, including but not limited to distributing information to and briefing journalists, placing articles and broadcasts, arranging interviews with representatives or supporters of PTI, advising on social media efforts and other such public relations services.” The firm contacted hundreds of US and Western media organisations and was able to secure several interviews for Imran Khan and news stories highlighting the PTI’s narrative.