Invidious coalition: Caretaker setup for PTI’s warring Punjab wing

Intra-party elections have been indefinitely postponed

LAHORE: With the indefinite postponement of the Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf (PTI) Punjab intraparty elections amid bitter wrangling and the Panama Papers controversy, the race to secure spots in the party’s provincial caretaker set-up is heating up.

Over the forthcoming week, party leaders say, an interim setup will be constituted to handle organisational matters till the holding of intraparty elections. In April, PTI chairman Imran Khan announced the indefinite postponement of intraparty polls ostensibly to focus on the Panama Papers controversy. The announcement came as the alleged antipathy between PTI stalwarts Jehangir Tareen and Shah Mehmood Qureshi hit headlines.

PTI leaders say the party, reeling from internal schisms courtesy the intraparty elections, had no option but to focus on the accountability campaign kicked-off by the Joint Opposition.  Former Punjab governor Chaudhry Sarwar, aspiring for the provincial top slot, says the decision to postpone the intraparty polls has everyone’s backing. He says that uncertainty cannot be allowed to prevail for long nevertheless. All party offices were dissolved in late April by the party chairman, only for various party wings to be restored in a bid to mobilise PTI activists against the government following the Panama Papers controversy.

Sarwar says the party may nominate regional office bearers. He said this was one of the proposals being deliberated on. He said nominating officials for north, south, central and west Punjab is also being looked into with regard to the interim setup.

Former PTI Punjab president Ejaz Chaudhry says the interim setup will be given concrete shape over the next week. He said the party will nominate popular leaders in view of the schisms which emerged in the run-up to the intraparty elections. “The party was not in a position to conduct intraparty elections following the Panama revelations. We had to focus on it...otherwise the PTI would have missed the bus,” Chaudhry said. The former PTI Punjab organiser says while a meeting had been convened on the interim setup on May 26, the party is currently weighing all options. He says the party’s core group is slated to come together once again on Friday. Chaudhry says he personally believes that nominating individuals for the interim setup who desisted from vying in the intraparty elections seems like a promising idea.

“The party needs to strive for consensus and avoid any internal politicking,” he says.

Published in The Express Tribune, June 3^rd, 2016.