By Staff Reporter
ISLAMABAD: Imran Khan’s Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) ended eight hours of core committee talks on the failure of its Islamabad march without adopting a single recommendation, after the party leadership refused to put any proposal to a vote.
Members pressed for a fact-finding committee, the dissolution of the party’s political committee and an end to what they described as decision-making by a handful of people, according to a report published in the Dawn newspaper. Some also demanded that Mahmood Khan Achakzai be removed as leader of the opposition in the National Assembly. The two-day meeting ended with all of it unresolved.
The march, led by Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP) chief minister Sohail Afridi, set off from Lakki Marwat on 4 October after talks between the government and the opposition collapsed. The federal government imposed emergency and governor’s rule in the province on 11 October, suspending the PTI-led provincial government and placing Afridi in preventive custody.
The participant said the committee discussed why the march failed, the role of Achakzai, who chairs the Tehreek-i-Tahafuz-Ayin-i-Pakistan (TTAP) alliance, and how the party takes decisions. It was claimed that turnout was large in Charsadda but fell in Mardan, and that no arrangements had been made in Swabi.
Some participants blamed Afridi for the failure. Others turned on the party’s own committees and asked why the core committee had taken seven days to convene.
Several members said the party was no longer run according to its charter and that a “supra committee” of five people was making every decision. One recalled that Imran Khan had created a 14-member apex committee alongside the core committee. The apex body was later converted into the political committee, which was enlarged, dissolved and replaced, while the core committee’s meetings eventually stopped. Members called for collective decision-making in place of individual rulings.
When a fact-finding committee was proposed, the participant said, party chairman Barrister Gohar Ali Khan replied that the party should not wash its dirty linen in public. Azam Swati proposed holding intra-party elections and getting a stay order lifted, but Gohar said three years would soon have passed and elections would follow then, a member said.
Members also asked why TTAP was being allowed to open party offices at district level and whether the PTI would contest the next election under its banner. Gohar denied any such plan. Another proposal was to reconstitute the negotiating committee and add political figures, including PTI senators.
Speaking to reporters afterwards, Gohar said Achakzai would remain opposition leader because he had been appointed by Imran Khan. “We have no right to disagree with any decision of Mahmood Khan Achakzai and Allama Raja Nasir Abbas,” he said. “So their decisions will be implemented, and they will negotiate on behalf of PTI.”
Sher Afzal Marwat, a disgruntled PTI member of the National Assembly, said neither he nor any other party member had been consulted on Achakzai’s selection. “If you accord someone respect, you should not subsequently humiliate them,” he said. He warned that the party would have no future unless it allowed new leaders to emerge, and said many members were in hiding because of the crackdown. He has also said he would challenge the emergency and governor’s rule in court and offered to lead the party if its leadership was unavailable.
The committee also discussed how to secure meetings with Imran Khan in Adiala jail. Mashal Yousafzai suggested that Barrister Saif, from KP, be named focal person, saying he was capable of the job. Others preferred Fawad Chaudhry, a former PTI leader. Some participants feared access would be refused altogether, because Senate elections are due in February and the authorities would not allow meetings before the vote.
Sheikh Waqas Akram, the PTI’s central information secretary, said only that detailed discussions had taken place and would help future policy-making. A third meeting was possible, he said, but no date had been set.
In a statement after the meeting, the party expressed concern about the crackdown, vowed to challenge it at all forums and demanded protection for the province’s mines and minerals.
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