Aimal elected ANP provincial president

PESHAWAR: Aimal Wali Khan was elected unopposed as the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa president of the Awami National Party (ANP) in the intra-party election on Wednesday.

The ANP provincial council elected the office-bearers at the Bacha Khan Markaz, the headquarters of the party, for four years.

Aimal Wali Khan, son of the party chief Asfandyar Wali Khan, as expected was elected the ANP provincial president without contest as no other candidate was in the field.

The father and son would now hold the two most important positions in the ANP as Khyber Pakhtunkhwa has always remained the only stronghold of the party in Pakistan and the party unit in the province would be headed by Aimal Wali. Born in 1986, Aimal Wali did intermediate from Aitchison College Lahore and BBA from Karachi. He had worked as the party’s provincial joint secretary from 2010 to 2014 and deputy general secretary from 2014-2018. Aimal Wali was defeated by PTI’s Sultan Mohammad Khan in the July 2018 general election for a provincial assembly seat in his native Charsadda district. Aimal Wali has replaced the former chief minister Ameer Haider Hoti as the provincial president of the party.

Sardar Hussain Babak was elected provincial general secretary for the second consecutive term. He retained his seat by securing 279 votes. He is also the party’s parliamentary leader after having won his provincial assembly seat from Buner both in the 2018 and 2013 general election. Khushdil Khan, former deputy speaker Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Assembly and presently the lawmaker from a rural Peshawar constituency, was elected as senior vice-president.