ECP issued notices to PTI over ‘fraudulent’ intra-party elections for Dec 12

The Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) issued the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) a notice on Friday over a petition filed by its founding member Akbar S Babar challenging the party’s intra-party polls.

In a preliminary hearing, a five-member ECP bench, led by Chief Election Commissioner (CEC) Sikandar Sultan Raja considered a series of petitions submitted by PTI founding members.

One of the founding members of PTI, Akbar S. Babar, along with other party members, filed the petition, against “rigged/fraudulent PTI intra-party elections” requesting the country’s top electoral authority to order the party to conduct fresh polls.

The legal representatives of PTI’s founding member, Akbar S. Babar, and Raja Tahir Nawaz Abbasi asserted that the intra-party elections were not conducted in compliance with the rules and should be invalidated.

In the plea Babar and others stated that there was no schedule given before the elections and the voter lists were also not released. The petition detailed that there was no activity in PTI central secretariat related to elections.

Akbar S. Babar’s lawyer Ali Hassan claimed that the party’s constitution says that all registered members can vote,” he said, adding that it does not specify the procedure for conducting intra-party polls.

“If the party constitution does not specify an election method, than the polls should be held under the Elections Act. The PTI’s intra-party elections were held in violation of the act,” Ali Hassan added.

The election commission notified the PTI, scheduling a hearing for December 12.