By Staff Reporter
ISLAMABAD: The Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI), the party of the jailed former prime minister Imran Khan, announced its nominees for the top positions in the federal and provincial governments on Thursday, amid a wave of protests and legal challenges over the disputed election results.
Barrister Gohar Khan, a PTI leader, said Khan had chosen Omar Ayub Khan, the party’s central general secretary, as the candidate for prime minister. Ayub, a former minister and the grandson of a former military dictator, is currently in hiding after facing more than 20 charges related to the violent clashes that erupted on May 9, when Khan was arrested on corruption charges.
Gohar also said Mian Aslam Iqbal, a senior PTI leader from Lahore, was nominated for the slot of Punjab chief minister, the most powerful provincial post.
The party was still deliberating over the nomination of Salaar Khan Kakar, a PTI lawmaker from Balochistan, as the chief minister of that province, he added.
The PTI also picked Aqibullah Khan, the brother of Asad Qaiser, a former speaker of the National Assembly and a close aide of Khan, as the speaker of the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Assembly, where the party has a majority.
Gohar said the PTI’s nominations for the National Assembly speaker and deputy speaker would be announced soon.
The PTI-backed independent candidates emerged as the largest group in the Feb. 8 parliamentary elections but fell short of a clear majority.
Earlier this week, the party said it would ally with the Majlis Wahdat-e-Muslimeen, a Shiite group, in the center and Punjab. It also said it would form a coalition government with the Jamaat-e-Islami, an Islamist party, in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa.
However, the Jamaat-e-Islami later denied any such agreement.
The PTI’s nominations came after Gohar and other party leaders held a series of meetings with Khan at the Adiala Jail in Rawalpindi.
Gohar said Khan had made it clear that the PTI would not engage in any power-sharing with the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N), the party of former prime minister Nawaz Sharif, the Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP), the party of former president Asif Ali Zardari, and the Muttahida Qaumi Movement-Pakistan (MQM-P), a Karachi-based party.
“We will do strong opposition until our full mandate is returned, but we are in the position to form governments in Punjab, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and the center,” Gohar said. “These elections were very critical, and we won’t let our mandate be stolen.”
The PTI would hold a peaceful protest across the country on Saturday against the “marginalization of the PTI,” claiming that the party had won a “clear mandate” but it was being “snatched.”
Gohar refuted reports regarding talks with the PPP and a coalition with the PTI-Parliamentarians, a faction of the party that broke away from Khan in 2023.
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