PTI workers fear conflict of interest in ticket allotment

Members concerned as scrutiny boards comprise of ticket aspirants, public office holders

PESHAWAR: Scrutiny committees and parliamentary boards of the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) comprise of members of the national and provincial assemblies as well as those in contention for party tickets for the upcoming general elections.

Owing to a possible conflict of interest, party workers and candidates have asked Imran Khan, the party chairman, to form panels with a neutral board to allot tickets on merit and free of nepotism and favourtism.

Candidates from different constituencies of Peshawar have reached out to Khan over their concerns regarding the scrutiny and selection of candidates for the upcoming polls.

They mention that most of the regional and district boards comprise people already occupying a public office or are in the running for party tickets themselves, giving rise to suspicions over transparency of the process.



Subsequently, they have suggested that in order to make the process transparent, the committee should be made as impartial as possible by including people with no apparent self-interest in the selection of party ticket holders.

The party workers have also suggested that if the involvement of regional presidents is required in the process, then two neutral people should also be added to the process, and the decision should made democratically.

A ticket aspirant told The Express Tribune on condition of anonymity that most of the committee and parliamentary board members are currently MPAs, MNAs or ministers. He said if scrutiny committee members are also running for party tickets, how they can make fair decisions.

According to the party worker, Shah Farman is currently serving as PTI’s regional president, Ashtiaq Urmer as district president, Sher Ali as district general secretary and Arbab Shehzad as party’s Election Cell head at Bani Gala, and all them have applied for party tickets.

He added that on regional and district level these people would again be a part of the selection process “which is a clear conflict of interests”.