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Thursday March 28, 2024

PTI kicks off preparations for next general elections

By Zia Ur Rehman
January 16, 2017

Forms 17-member board to select candidates for

20 NA constituencies and 42 PS seats

Kicking off its preparations for the next general elections, the Karachi leadership of the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) has started collecting nomination papers of the party’s aspirant candidates.

The PTI has set up a 17-member parliamentary board, which would select the candidates for 20 constituencies of the National Assembly (NA) and 42 Provincial Assembly of Sindh (PS) seats. The board would collect applications of the candidates interested in contesting the polls until January 31.

The party’s MNAs Asad Umar and Dr Arif Alvi and MPAs Khurrum Sher Zaman, Samar Ali Khan and Dr Seema Zia are part of the parliamentary board.

PTI Karachi President Firdous Shamim Naqvi, Secretary General Sardar Abdul Aziz, PTI Central Deputy Secretary General Imran Ismail, former Karachi presidents Ali Zaidi and Najeeb Haroon, District Municipal Corporation (DMC) South Vice-Chairman Mansoor Shaikh and DMC West VC Azizullah Afridi are also members of the board.

The board was formed after decisions made during the meeting of the party’s core committee in Bani Gala, Islamabad, in December.

The application for an NA ticket would cost Rs10,000 and for a PS ticket Rs5,000. While the board has been authorised to select candidates for the PS constituencies of Karachi, candidates interested in contesting the polls on the city’s NA seats would be shortlisted and the board would recommend two names for each constituency to the central parliamentary board for finalising the candidates.

Naqvi, in a December 8 statement, had said the party would contest the election from each and every constituency of the city. “The next general polls are likely to be held much ahead of the schedule, probably this year.”

He said the party’s candidates in the 2013 general polls had only 30 to 35 days to run their electoral campaigns, and despite that the party bagged more than 850,000 votes from Karachi alone.

Besides seeking applications for party tickets, the PTI has also organised parties at levels of union committee and ward.

During the past two weeks several aspirants submitted their applications at the Insaf House in Karachi for various NA and PS constituencies, claimed PTI leaders.

Dawa Khan Sabir, spokesman for the PTI’s Karachi chapter, said three to five candidates had submitted their applications for each constituency so far and the number was expected to rise by the end of the month.

“There is enthusiasm among party leaders and workers as regards submitting applications for party tickets,” Sabir, who has applied for the PS-93 constituency, told The News.

However, the PTI’s provincial and city leaders admitted that the party would prefer issuing tickets to candidates who are popular figures.

“Dr Arif Alvi, Imran Ismail, Faisal Vawda, Khurrum Sher Zaman and Ali Zaidi are popular because of their regular appearance in the media,” said a PTI Karachi leader.

 

Immense challenge

Considering the results of the previous general elections, PTI candidates gave a tough time to their opponents in a majority of NA and PS seats in Karachi and the party had emerged as the second largest party in the city.

Despite its increasing popularity in Karachi that made it a formidable political force in the 2013 polls, the city chapter of the PTI is caught up in an organisational crisis, political analysts believe.

Imtiaz Khan Faran, a veteran journalist covering Karachi’s political parties, believes that the situation in the previous elections was different, as residents of the city who were frustrated with the traditional ethno-political parties, especially the Muttahida Qaumi Movement, had voted for the PTI in large numbers.

“But now, weak organisational structure and the influence of some leaders belonging to specific ethnicity and class will not allow it to regain its popularity of the 2013 polls,” Faran told The News.

Commenting on submission of applications a year before the polls, he predicts that after the candidates are finalised, there would be another crisis among the party leaders over issuing tickets.

In the local government polls held in December 2015, the PTI, even after forging a city-level electoral alliance with the Jamaat-e-Islami, had performed poorly.