- Says new intra-party elections held in accordance with guidelines set out by ECP
- Omar Ayub elected as General Secretary, Dr Yasmin Rashid Punjab President and Gandapur as KP President
ISLAMABAD: Barrister Gohar Ali Khan was elected as the chairman Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) unopposed for a second time while Omar Ayub as central general secretary in the intra-party elections, Raoof Hassan, party’s information secretary announced on Sunday.
Announced results of the intra-party elections at a press conference here, PTI’s information secretary Raoof Hassan said that Barrister Gohar Ali Khan was elected as the chairman of PTI without facing any opposition in the intra-party elections. “Omar Ayub secured the central general secretary position, while Dr Yasmin Rashid clinched the presidency of Punjab unopposed”, he informed.
He told the reporters that some party members withdrew their applications for the position of chairman in the interest of the party’s “harmony and unity”.
He noted that initially there were four applications for the position from Ashraf Jabbar, Omar Ayub, Naveed Anjum Khan and Barrister Gohar. Three applications were accepted, while that of Naveed was rejected.
Naveed’s application was rejected because he contested the Feb 8 general elections against a PTI-supported candidate, after which his party membership was cancelled on Feb 11, Raoof said.
He noted that a second reason for the rejection was that despite Naveed applying for party membership again on Feb 24, a pre-condition to contesting intraparty elections is to have been an uninterrupted member for at least 6 months.
Following that, Jabbar and Ayub “graciously withdrew their applications for the sake of party unity and harmony”.
“Therefore, following the withdrawal, there was no candidate in the field against Gohar […] so we have declared him the uncontested winner. Gohar Khan has been elected the party chairman unopposed,” Hasan said.
He added that only Omer Ayub Khan had filed nomination papers for the slot of the PTI general secretary. “And he too has been declared uncontested winner,” the PTI spokesperson said.
This is the third time PTI has conducted intra-party polls over the past two years, following its Dec 2 elections which resulted in its electoral ‘bat’ symbol ultimately being revoked by the Supreme Court following back and forth verdicts by the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) and Peshawar High Court (PHC). Gohar was elected the PTI chairman for the first time in Dec 2 election.
Prior to that, the PTI held elections in June 2022, which the ECP had annulled on Nov 23, terming them “highly objectionable”.
Following the decision to schedule the new intra-party polls on March 3, incarcerated PTI leader Imran Khan had nominated Barrister Ali Zafar for the position of chairman, but he refused to accept the chairmanship.
Hasan stressed that the new intra-party elections were held in accordance with guidelines set out by the ECP, noting that the party’s previous two elections “ran into some trouble” with the electoral watchdog.
Results of other positions are: Ali Amin Gandapur has been elected as PTI President Khyber Pakhtunkhwa; Noorul Haq Qadri was elected as vice president, and Arbab Jahandad Khan as vice president of the PTI KP.
Khyber Pakhtunkhwa election commissioner Qazi Anwar Advocate announced the victory notification of Ali Amin Gandapur. The panel of Ali Amin Gandapur was elected unopposed, as no other panel submitted nomination papers.
Ali Asghar Khan and Irfan Saleem won the roles of general secretary and additional general secretary, respectively. On the other hand, Fakhar Zaman was elected as deputy general secretary.
Daniyal Khan Jadoon, Khaista Mehmood, and Taimoor Khalid have been elected as joint secretaries.
