PTI starts intra-party poll to rid politics of ‘family controls’

70% voters participate in voting through text messages to choose 500 party leaders.

ISLAMABAD:

Kick-starting a new era in national politics, over 62,000 voters of the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) on Sunday exercised their right to choose around 500 party leaders for the federal capital in the country’s first-ever “democratic intra-party elections”.

According to an official statement, over 70% voters participated in the process through cell phones and text messages.



Around 41 polling stations were established across Islamabad to facilitate those voters who either didn’t have access to cell phones or did not know how to vote through the gadgets.

The voting process will continue till 12:00 am on Monday while the results would be announced in the afternoon by PTI’s Chief Election Commissioner Hamid Khan.



PTI Chairman Imran Khan congratulated party workers for taking part in the first-ever intra-party elections using modern technology and said that PTI would get rid of the “family control” system in political parties and now the voters will choose their own leaders through a “transparent system of voting”.

“This is a historic day. PTI workers have laid the foundation of change and a new Pakistan will emerge from these polls... the will of the people would prevail and there would be no place for political monarchs.

“This is the real change and this process would continue till the time people see their true leaders taking over from the coterie of the corrupt,” Imran said.

Prominent PTI leaders, including Javed Hashmi, Shafqat Mahmood and Ayla Malik, visited different polling stations in the federal capital. “The PTI expresses gratitude to its workers who are choosing their representatives in Islamabad today [Sunday],” said Mahmood.

However, he told The Express Tribune that problems were faced due to a suspension of cellular services by the government. “Some voters informed us that they could not caste their votes due to network problems,” he added.

“Since phone lines were not responding so I tried cell phones but that did not work either due to network problems or due to some conspiracy,” said Mohammad Zaman, a voter at the G-9 Markaz polling station.

Party Information Secretary Shafqat Mehmood said the PTI had conducted real elections in the party and “this is not a drama”.

“Though we don’t have the resources that a government enjoys, yet we have installed a mechanism to allow over seven million PTI voters to take part in intra-party polls,” he added.

PTI is planning to replicate the process in Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa by December 15, followed by Sindh and Punjab. “Intra-party elections will be completed by the end of 2012 at all costs,” Mehmood told The Express Tribune.

However, Khan’s party has already postponed intra-party elections for Azad Jammu and Kashmir and Gilgit-Baltistan till next year because the party has yet to establish offices in these regions.

Published in The Express Tribune, November 19^th, 2012.