Jemima Goldsmith, sons announce support for PTI election candidates

LONDON: Jailed former prime minister Imran Khan's ex-wife Jemima Goldsmith and her sons — Kasim Khan and Suleman Khan — Wednesday announced their support for Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaaf (PTI) candidates as more than 128 million voters gear up to elect their representatives in Pakistan's general elections on February 8.

Khan's son Kasim took to social media and said: "Tomorrow’s a huge day for Pakistan. Your vote is important. As soon as you’re able to, please post a photo or video saying "I voted PTI" with the hashtag #votePTI to show your support! Pakistan Zindabad!"

Kasim's tweet from his unverified account came to attention only after Jemima retweeted it to her millions of followers.

Kasim Khan’s tweets — in Urdu and English — carried a picture of him posing with his elder brother Suleman Khan with both brothers holding PTI’s flag, asking for votes for PTI on 8 February.

The same picture — Kasim and Suleman holding up the PTI flag – was tweeted by Jemima Goldsmith with the caption: “Pakelection 8th February”. Ten minutes later the tweet disappeared from Jemima’s timeline which means she deleted her social media post on X — formerly Twitter. However, her repost of Kasim Khan’s tweet remains available on her timeline and has been shared by thousands of users. By the time Jemima deleted her post, over 7000 users shared it.

Jemima and Kasim only posted pictures of PTI flags and not the symbol of the iconic "bat" as PTI has lost its case to use it as their electoral symbol. Thousands of PTI candidates are now contesting as independents using various election symbols. The Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) on December 22 revoked PTI’s bat symbol on the technical grounds that the party had not held intra-party elections – as required under the law. This rendered the party ineligible for having a symbol for the 2024 elections.

Earlier, Jemima had called out a fake X account set up last week in her son’s name to support the PTI's election campaign.

Jemima, who was married to former premier Imran Khan till around two decades ago, asked her followers to report the fake account but it has now been confirmed that Kasim Khan has set up his genuine account.

Jemima had said her sons are not on X or any other social media site but it appears Kasim Khan has joined the social media site recently.

Jemima had previously stated that she needs no politics in her life and avoids discussing and taking part in political matters to stay away from political fights.

The writer of the romantic comedy What’s Love Got To Do With It had said: I need politics out of my life.”