Islamabad, Mar 4: Jailed former prime minister Imran Khan’s Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf party on Sunday announced that Barrister Gohar Ali Khan was elected as its chairman following fresh intra-party polls.The party was forced to hold the election to elect key office holders after its elections of last year were not accepted as legal by the Election Commission of Pakistan which also deprived it of the iconic symbol of cricket bat.
Addressing a press conference in Islamabad, PTI’s spokesperson and Chief Election Commissioner Raoof Hasan announced that Gohar was elected unopposed as the chairman.
Gohar won the chairman’s position unopposed since there were no other candidates because his two challengers withdrew from the race while the candidacy of another was rejected.
“Because of this, there were no candidates against Gohar, so we declared him the uncontested winner. He has been elected party chairman unopposed,” Hasan said.
Meanwhile, Omar Ayub Khan was elected PTI’s secretary general unopposed, since there were no other nominations for the position.
Gohar was handpicked by Imran Khan and he was also elected the PTI chairman in the intra-party elections held in December last year.
This was the third time PTI conducted its intra-party elections in the past two years. It had also held elections in June 2022, which the ECP had annulled on November 23 last year by terming them “highly objectionable”.
After Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) leader Shehbaz Sharif was picked as the PM-designate, the joint session of the National Assembly was called on March 9 to elect the next president of the country, The Express Tribune reported on Sunday. The newly elected National Assembly speaker Ayaz Sadiq on Sunday issued the notification to summon the parliament session on March 9 at 10 am, according to the report.
Earlier, former Pakistan President Asif Ali Zardari, a joint candidate of Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) and Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N), as well as Pashtunkhwa Milli Awami Party (PKMAP) chief Mahmood Achakzai, filed their nomination papers for the top post, The News International reported. The two leaders submitted their nomination papers to the Islamabad High Court. Zardari submitted two nomination papers–one from Islamabad and the second from Karachi, according to the daily.