Alliance with MWM: PTI weighs legal implications, prospects

ISLAMABAD: The Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf’s legal team is engaged in deliberations regarding the possibility of joining Majlis Wahdat-e-Muslimeen, its legal implications and to what extent it can make parliamentary gains.

Sources in the PTI told The News that consultations were still underway, particularly in the party’s circle of legal fraternity because many ifs and buts were involved. “This has never been done in the country’s political history; perhaps, therefore, extreme caution is being exercised before arriving at a major political decision,” they said. The PTI and MWM have been allies for years but both sides are faced with an entirely different proposition.

According to party sources, once the legal team furnishes its recommendations, the core committee will have its meeting to take a final decision. They say their party will be putting at stake its identity, and this is of utmost importance as it needs to be understood how much it will gain in terms of reserved seats which indeed would be MWM seats. The MWM has never enjoyed a significant presence in parliament.

“The real question before us is also what exactly the price of meeting the legal requirement to qualify for women’s reserved seats will be,” a senior PTI lawyer said.

Accordingly, it is understood that the list of women candidates for reserved seats must have been very short; therefore, against PTI-backed over 93 returned candidates, the due share might not be available accordingly.

Parliamentary sources believe it would also be interesting to see how the Election Commission of Pakistan will react to the possible new scenario in terms of the Elections Act, 2017, and how it will interpret it.

“We have no problem. It will be great if our platform becomes a PTI platform to take forward a leap for failing the moves of political opponents,” said a senior member of the MWM when contacted for comments on the matter.

Meanwhile, a PTI spokesperson claimed that Founding Chairman Imran Khan had buried the politics of ‘certified criminal’ Nawaz Sharif and the corrupt mafia for good, who were dreaming of seeing Khan off the political arena. He said that the people had thwarted all nefarious plots and schemes to impose the rejected clique under the infamous London Plan through their votes. He alleged that Nawaz’s power-hungry brother ‘Shobaz Sharif’ and ‘Calibri Queen’ Maryam Nawaz had even betrayed him to secure coveted slots in the Centre and Punjab.

The PTI spokesperson went on to say that the PTI founding chairman’s long struggle had made the nation politically so mature that they closed the chapter of the politics of Nawaz and crooked political mafia forever.