directed<\/a> the party to hold the polls, the PTI core committee issued a press release saying that preparations were complete and announced Niazullah Niazi as the PTI CEC.<\/p>\nBabar said the press release did not mention any other names of the PTI Federal Election Commission or share other details of the polls such as the election rules, regulations, detailed schedule of elections, nomination timeline and various other aspects.<\/p>\n
He added that the press release also did not specify the vote-counting process or the announcement of election results, further saying that no such information was available on the PTI website until polling day.<\/p>\n
Babar said that on Dec 1, he visited the PTI Central Secretariat in Islamabad in the afternoon with other party members but the party representative present at the site had \u201cexpressed his helplessness in sharing the required information (nomination papers, voter lists and rules and regulations of the elections) as none existed\u201d.<\/p>\n
Commenting on the day of the election, Babar said: \u201cA crowd of a few scores of people, without any prior authentication regarding their status in the party, were assembled in an undisclosed location in Peshawar who shouted: \u2018We accept, we accept\u2019.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe charade was filmed and shown on national television. The same day before noon, the election results were announced to the media. All the candidates were elected unopposed,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Babar said that \u201cin the absence of basic rules of elections [\u2026] the entire intra-party election was a mere eye wash and a vain attempt to hoodwink the ECP\u201d.<\/p>\n
He said the \u201cfraudulent\u201d process had \u201cdisenfranchised\u201d PTI members from participating in the intra-party elections in clear violation of ECP laws.<\/p>\n
Babar added that even representatives of independent organisations such as Pildat had expressed \u201cserious reservations about the transparency\u201d of the intra-party polls.<\/p>\n
The founding PTI member said he was left with no other choice than to approach the electoral watchdog and request that it declare the intra-party elections \u201cnull and void\u201d while also issuing fresh directives for holding new polls as soon as possible.<\/p>\n
Considering the PTI\u2019s \u201cchequered history\u201d in holding intra-party elections, Babar suggested that the ECP appoint independent third-party monitors to review and oversee the process.<\/p>\n
Babar further said that the party\u2019s election symbol of the bat be held in abeyance until it conducted transparent polls in accordance with the law.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt is time that the charade of holding rigged and manipulated intra-party elections must end. All major political parties must be vigorously scrutinised under the relevant laws to allow credible and competent leadership to emerge from within political parties. This is the only way forward for democracy to deliver and meet the challenges confronting society,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Talking to the media in Islamabad outside the ECP, Babar lashed out at the PTI leadership and questioned why it did not provide a level playing field to its workers.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhy don\u2019t you give them the right to elect their leadership? You talk about a level playing field, why don\u2019t you provide it in your home and to your party members?\u201d he asked.<\/p>\n
He said many other PTI workers, founding members and leaders were with him who had also submitted separate petitions against the intra-party polls to \u201csave the bat\u201d.<\/p>\n
Babar said he and those with him wanted to play the role of a \u201cbridge\u201d between the PTI and ECP with the stance that the party be given another chance to hold transparent polls instead of being denied its election symbol.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe are actually out to save the bat,\u201d he stressed.<\/p>\n
Various other petitions were also submitted to the ECP along similar lines as Babar\u2019s with the mutual demands of declaring the intra-party elections without effect and orders for the exercise to be carried out anew.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
PTI founding member Akbar S. Babar on Tuesday moved the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) against the party\u2019s intra-party elections, alleging they were \u201crigged and fraudulent\u201d. The polls had taken place on Saturday in accordance with the directives issued by the ECP, with Barrister Gohar Ali Khan elected as the new party chairman after being […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":31793,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"default","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","ast-disable-related-posts":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"default","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/i.dawn.com\/large\/2023\/12\/0517242045adfb6.png?r=174149","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[192],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-31792","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-islamabad-news"],"acf":[],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/pakistaninewspaperlist.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31792","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/pakistaninewspaperlist.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/pakistaninewspaperlist.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pakistaninewspaperlist.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pakistaninewspaperlist.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=31792"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/pakistaninewspaperlist.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31792\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pakistaninewspaperlist.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/31793"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/pakistaninewspaperlist.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=31792"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pakistaninewspaperlist.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=31792"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pakistaninewspaperlist.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=31792"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}