Imran decision to bet on lawyers to lead party backfired

ISLAMABAD: Imran Khan’s decision, in the backdrop of May 9 riots, to bet on leading lawyers to lead his party to effectively take part in the Feb 8 elections has backfired as the party’s Plan-A and Plan-B have failed.

What is more embarrassing for the lawyers-led PTI is that both of its Plan-A and Plan-B failed on legal grounds. Plan-A was to defend its case in the Supreme Court against the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP). Plan-B, which was kept secret as a major surprise in case the PTI’s symbol “bat” was not revived by the apex court, was to get the PTI candidates contest the election as candidates of PTI-Nazriati, which has the election symbol of “Batsman”.

The PTI lost its case in the Supreme Court because it not only failed to prove its case that the ECP has no jurisdiction to approach the apex court against Peshawar High Court decision of suspending ECP’s order. The PTI legal team defending its case in the apex court also failed to defend the legality of the party’s intra-party elections. The PTI legal team instead admitted that there were irregularities in the intra party elections but questioned the ECP’s power to deprive the party of its election symbol.

The flawed intra-party elections were also held when the party lawyers, most of whom joined the PTI recently, were calling the shots. The intra-party elections were rejected by the ECP for legal deficiencies and violations of both the Election Act 2017 and PTI’s own constitution.

Adding insult to the PTI’s injuries, the party’s Plan-B was knocked down immediately by the ECP on legal grounds. Sensing during the SC’s day-long hearing of the intra-party election case that things are not going well for the PTI in the courtroom, the party (earlier in the day and before the apex court’s decision) issued directions to its candidates to submit the PTI-N tickets before the Returning Officers.

While talking to media persons, PTI spokesperson Shoaib Shaheen said the party candidates can submit their nomination papers under PTI-N’s name. “The returning officers are bound [by the law] to issue tickets for whichever party the candidates ask them to,” the PTI leader said.

Later, the ECP issued an order which said that some candidates were trying to deceive it via their applications seeking the electoral symbol of another political party. The top electoral body directed the returning officers (ROs) to refrain from allotting the electoral symbol of a party other than which the candidate belongs to.

It detailed that every candidate was bound to submit a party association certificate under the Election Act, 2017. Additionally, a candidate could not keep membership in more than one political party at a time, it concluded. The ECP order, which had the signatures of the Chief Election Commissioner and all the four members, shot down the PTI’s plan-B on the basis of alleged illegality -- a candidate can’t represent two political parties. The question arises if the PTI leadership did not know this basic legal point that a candidate can’t represent two political parties at the same time.

Meanwhile, Chairman of PTI-N Akhtar Iqbal Dar expressed his surprise in a press conference how the PTI directed its candidates to contest the upcoming election on the symbol of PTI-N i.e. Batsman. He alleged the PTI has fake tickets of the PTI-N. He said the ECP needs to look into the forgery done by the PTI. The PTI spokesman alleged that the PTI-N chairman held the Saturday’s press conference under duress.