A security guard standing outside Election Commission of Pakistan in Islamabad on September 21, 2023. Photo: AFP
The Election Commission of Pakistan has refused to recognise Barrister Gohar Ali Khan as the chairperson of Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI).
The Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP), in reply to Gohar’s previously issued letter, stated that on November 13, he had requested that the affiliation of independent senators with PTI be acknowledged.
The commission said the PTI intra-party elections case is still pending, and the party has obtained a stay order from the Lahore High Court (LHC). According to the ECP, he cannot be recognised as PTI chairperson and holds no legal authority in this regard.
On January 13, 2024, a three-member SC bench upheld the ECP’s December 22, 2023, order declaring the PTI’s intra-party polls null and void.
Later, the PTI candidates had to contest the February 8, 2024, general elections as independents.
Read: ‘ECP justified in case of 41 candidates’
Eighty such independent candidates reached the National Assembly and later joined the SIC in an apparent bid to claim reserved seats for women and minorities. The ECP, however, refused to allocate the seats to the party, a decision that the SIC challenged in the Supreme Court.
On July 12, 2024, a full bench of the apex court, through a majority of eight to five, resurrected the PTI as a parliamentary party, noting that 39 of the lawmakers who had submitted certificates of their affiliation with the PTI along with their nomination papers were already PTI lawmakers.
Read more: Slim chances of CB upholding July 12 ruling
The SC ruled that the remaining 41 lawmakers who had not submitted the affiliation certificates at the time of nomination papers’ submission could do that now within a period of 15 days.
The ruling coalition later filed a review petition against the SC ruling, which the Constitutional Bench took up in May.
