PTI’s second bid to hold intra-party polls may divide it further

ISLAMABAD: The Pakistan Tehrik-e-Insaf leadership has come into a fix over holding or not its second intra-party polls as its membership campaign has not achieved anything better than the year 2012 when the total of 7.5 percent were claimed to be the members/voters. Since the party was unable to form a database on basis of the previous membership campaign, it was forced into fresh membership and seeing poor response twice extended the deadline for completion of the membership. An insider confided to the News that pace of membership this time is so poor that only 25,000 members have been registered from Peshawar. Akbar Babar a disgruntled PTI leader said in last membership campaign 15,000 members were registered in Peshawar within one day.

Another senior disgruntled PTI leader on condition of anonymity said, “A large number of party leaders who had joined Imran Khan in the hope of positive change have become disillusioned and were not partaking in the intra- party polls exercise fearing humiliation. He predicted that the party instead of strengthening will further fragment after the intra- party polls as many disillusioned workers were making up their minds to leave the sinking deck.

Except for Imran Khan, most of Pakistan Tehrik-e-Insaf leadership has been divided into several regional and provincial factions before conducting the intra-party polls as various vested interests are at work to grab maximum position by using all the fair and unfair tactics that are in vogue in the country.

The election rules prohibited carving out panels or use of money but there are wide spreading reports of grouping as well use of money to influence voters. Reports emanating from various provinces, districts and regions suggest that there was a large scale unruliness as far as the contesting of direct party polls and dozens of election related complaints have been pouring in the provincial and central election commissions. Keeping in view the large scale complaints of manipulations, use of unfair means in the first intra-party polls and in light of the suggestions made by Justice Wajih panel, it was expected that extra care will be taken to make the process foolproof this time, but that was not done in letter and spirit.

The first elections which brought Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Chief Minister Parvaiz Khattak as party’s secretary general, the most powerful post after chairman, was marred by manipulations use of huge money as later proved and reported by the Justice Wajihuddin Ahmad panel appointed by the party chairman in aftermath of flurry of complaints by the lower strata of the party. However, as later turned out Khan refused to implement Justice Wajih’s recommendations about shunting out the main culprits of poll rigging and use of money. The main accused included Jahangir Tarin, Aleem Khan ad Parvaiz Khattak who have more influence on Khan than any other leader. Hence they are ruling the roost everywhere and transparency fair play are things of the past.