By Staff Reporter
ISLAMABAD: Independent candidates loyal to jailed former prime minister Imran Khan, who won the most seats in Pakistan’s national election this month, will join a small religious party to claim reserved seats for women and minorities in the country’s parliament, Khan’s party said on Monday.
The move was a workaround for a legal obstacle that prevented Khan’s Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf party from contesting the Feb. 8 vote under its own banner and symbol, a cricket bat, because of a dispute over its internal elections.
As a result, Khan’s supporters ran as independents and surprised many observers by winning 92 seats in the 342-member National Assembly, the lower house of parliament, according to official results.
They were followed by the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz, led by three-time former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, which won 75 seats, and the Pakistan Peoples Party, led by former Foreign Minister Bilawal Bhutto-Zardari, which won 54 seats.
But Khan’s party faced the risk of losing out on 60 seats reserved for women and 10 seats reserved for minorities, which are allocated to political parties based on their proportion of general seats in the assembly. Independent candidates are not eligible for reserved seats.
To overcome this hurdle, Khan’s party announced that its independent candidates would join the Sunni Ittehad Council, a minor religious party that has been an ally of the PTI for the last eight years.
“We are officially announcing that our independent candidates will join the SIC in the National Assembly and provincial assemblies of Punjab and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa in order to claim our share of reserved seats,” Gohar Khan, the interim chairman of PTI, told reporters in Islamabad.
Gohar Khan said the decision was made with consensus and with the approval of Khan, who has been in prison since 2022 on corruption charges.
“We have decided to join hands with the SIC for the sake of the country and the people,” Gohar Khan said at a joint press conference with SIC chief Sahibzada Hamid Raza in Islamabad.
He said his party had signed an agreement with the SIC and would formally apply to the Election Commission of Pakistan for its share of reserved seats after the merger.
“Affidavits from all candidates have been collected and will be submitted to the commission today.”
Sahibzada Hamid Raza, the chief of the SIC, said his party had entered into an “unconditional alliance” with the PTI party, in which all decisions would be made by Khan.
“We have been their ally for the last eight years and supported each other as we did now by providing our platform so that they can get their share in reserved seats,” he said, adding that a formal agreement was signed between the two parties after consultations.
Gohar Khan also reiterated the PTI’s allegation of widespread rigging and said his party would not accept the election results until they are verified. “We have evidence of how the ECP manipulated the results in favor of the PML-N,” he said. “We will not let them steal our mandate.”
The election in Pakistan, the third consecutive democratic transfer of power in the country’s history, was marred by a mobile service shutdown, delayed results, allegations of rigging and concerns from rights groups and foreign governments.
Several political parties, including Khan’s, have protested the results and challenged them in court, demanding a recount or a re-election in some constituencies.
The Election Commission of Pakistan has rejected the accusations of widespread fraud and said it would address any complaints through legal channels.
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