By Staff Reporter
ISLAMABAD: Pakistan’s Supreme Court on Friday cleared five candidates from the opposition Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) party to run in the general elections scheduled for Feb. 18, overturning rejections by lower courts and election officials.
The court’s decisions were seen as a boost for the party, which is led by former prime minister Imran Khan and is challenging the military establishment-backed Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz, or PML-N, headed by former prime minister Nawaz Sharif.
Among the candidates who were allowed to contest the elections was Chaudhry Parvez Elahi, a former chief minister of Punjab province and a senior leader of PTI.
Elahi will run from his hometown constituency in Gujrat district, in the eastern part of the country.
The court also cleared Sanam Javaid Khan, a social media activist who has been in jail for over eight months on charges of involvement in attacks on military installations last May. She will face off against two prominent PML-N candidates: Maryam Nawaz Sharif, the former prime minister’s daughter, and Ayaz Sadiq, the former speaker of the National Assembly. Both constituencies are in Lahore, the capital of Punjab and the stronghold of the PML-N.
The other three PTI candidates whom the court gave the green light were Shaukat Mehmood Basra, Malik Umar Aslam, and Tahir Sadiq. They will run from different districts of Punjab, the most populous and politically influential province in Pakistan.
However, the court upheld the disqualification of Mohammad Arif Abbasi, another PTI candidate, who was barred from running from a constituency in Rawalpindi district, near the capital, Islamabad.
The court heard the appeals of the candidates in three separate benches, headed by different judges. The judges expressed concern over the anomalies and hurdles in the election process and urged the Election Commission of Pakistan to facilitate the candidates and the voters.
“The court doesn’t want to see any hiccups by the commission or the application of electron microscope (on the candidature of the candidates),” Justice Munib Akhtar said while hearing the appeals of Khan and Basra.
Justice Athar Minallah, who heard the appeals of Elahi, Aslam, and Sadiq, said that contesting elections was a fundamental right of citizens and that the commission’s job was to create facilities for the people instead of creating an impression that measures were being taken only to discourage a particular political party.
The court’s decisions came amid a tense political atmosphere in Pakistan, where the PTI has accused the caretaker set-up and the military of using state institutions to manipulate the elections and target its leaders and workers.
The legitimacy of a democratic government in Pakistan depends largely on the credibility and fairness of the elections, which have been marred by allegations of rigging and violence in the past.
The PTI party faced a series of defections and legal challenges ahead of the polls. Earlier this month, the Supreme Court upheld the commission’s decision to revoke the opposition party’s iconic bat symbol and declare its intra-party polls as “unconstitutional”. The party then fielded its leaders as independent candidates with a variety of symbols.
Meanwhile, a senator from the PTI party has withdrawn his candidacy for the upcoming general elections and announced his support for the Pakistan Peoples Party on Friday.
Senator Saifullah Abro, who was contesting from a constituency in Sindh province, in the south of the country, said he had met PPP Chairman Bilawal Bhutto Zardari in Lahore on Thursday and decided to join his party.
“I am withdrawing in favour of Bilawal and have decided to compete with the tiger (PML-N),” Mr. Abro wrote on social media platform X, referring to the electoral symbol of the PML-N.
The PTI issued a show-cause notice to the senator for violating the party’s discipline and asked him to explain his decision within three days.
“You being elected as a senator on the party’s ticket in the Senate of Pakistan and also awarded a party ticket to contest General Elections 2024 have shown grave indiscipline by violating the party’s discipline,” the notice said.
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