PTI raises questions as websites 'blocked' ahead of Feb 8 polls

With general elections less than two weeks away, the Imran Khan-founded Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) Friday claimed that the party’s websites had been blocked in the country.

The former ruling party’s claim surfaced just a day after caretaker Prime Minister Anwaar-ul-Haq Kakar announced that all the political parties were enjoying a level playing field in the run-up to the February 8 general elections.

The Khan-founded party, which has been decrying the “absence of a level-playing field” in the run-up to polls, asked the caretakers to explain why the PTI’s websites were blocked in the country.

Earlier this month, the PTI took a major blow after the Supreme Court annulled the Peshawar High Court’s (PHC) January 10 order, depriving the former ruling party of its 'iconic' electoral symbol “bat”, in connection with alleged irregularities in its intraparty elections. The PTI, however, decided to field its candidates as independents in the upcoming polls.

In order to facilitate its voters, the former ruling party launched an online portal on its official website insaf.pk, as well as a “back-up site”, pticandidates.com, which the party now alleged had been blocked by the authorities concerned.

Taking to X, formerly known as Twitter, the party tagged the official handles of the Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (PTA), Interim Information Minister Murtaza Solangi and caretaker IT minister Umar Saif and asked: “Can you explain why PTI’s websites are blocked in Pakistan?”

“People are still getting symbol information from Imran Khan’s Facebook page so the question is what purpose is this block serving?”

Meanwhile, the Khan-founded party launched a chatbot on Facebook Messenger to help its supporters find electoral symbols allotted to party candidates contesting the February 8 elections.

On January 24, the PTI’s official account on X announced that voters can find out about the symbols allotted to the PTI-affiliated candidates by sending a direct message to Imran Khan’s official Facebook page. [At the time of filing of the story, the post had 346,500 views].

The post says: “Another innovative way to find PTI nominated candidate for your constituency, along with the allotted electoral symbol! Just send a message to Imran Khan’s official FB page with your constituency number and you will receive the information within a few minutes.”

The party has used Facebook’s ‘Automated responses’ feature to allow voters to find out the electoral symbols of candidates contesting from their constituencies.

With the general elections inching closer, most part the country experienced multiple internet disruptions that had made social media sites such as Facebook, YouTube, X and Instagram inaccessible. The former ruling party, however, blamed the caretakers for it and linked these disruptions to its online gatherings.