PTI Balochistan leaders to take protest to Bani Gala

Threaten to quit if Imran Khan does not reverse decision to dissolve provincial party set-up.

ISLAMABAD:

As leaders and office-bearers of Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf’s Balochistan chapter prepare to stage a protest outside the residence of party chief Imran Khan – who they say ‘unlawfully’ dissolved elected provincial bodies of the party –  a new rift may be emerging among PTI’s ranks, The Express Tribune has learnt.

“More than 550 elected office bearers [from Balochistan], on some 40 vehicles, will be on the road to Islamabad on Friday,” a senior leader from PTI’s Balochistan chapter said. He said the sacked president of PTI’s Balochistan chapter, Qasim Suri, would also meet the party chief today (Friday) to convey the concerns of the protesting office bearers.

“We will part ways with Imran Khan tomorrow [Friday] if he does not withdraw the notification to dissolve all provincial and district-level bodies in Balochistan,” another senior provincial leader told The Express Tribune. “We will also continue our protest against the ‘unlawful’ appointment of PTI’s secretary general and the president and vice-president of the party’s Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa chapter,” he added.



A senior PTI official, concerned with the party’s electoral matters, said Imran Khan went against the spirit of PTI’s constitution by nominating Jahangir Tareen as the secretary general and Azam Swati and Ishaq Khan Khakwani as the president and vice-president of the party’s K-P chapter respectively without holding intra-party elections for the offices.

Background interviews with senior PTI officials revealed that two of the party’s senior leaders have developed differences after Imran Khan fired the president of PTI’s Balochistan chapter and dissolved all of the party’s elected bodies in the province last week. According to sources, the decision was taken after it emerged that the party’s popularity in Balochistan had dropped to ‘zero’.

Party officials said PTI Vice Chairman Shah Mehmood Qureshi was opposed to dissolving elected bodies in Balochistan. The party chief was convinced into firing all PTI office-holders in the province by senior leaders Jahangir Tareen, Azam Swati and Ishaq Khan Khakwani, they added.

The three leaders presented a confidential report – prepared by the party’s reconciliation committee – which outline PTI’s standing in Balochistan and suggested measures for improvement.

“Where, in the wake of the April 20, 2012 rally, PTI’s popularity [in Balochistan] stood at 37%, it has now dropped to 0%... What happened after the intra-party elections? What should be the roadmap for reviving our party? Can we afford to leave Balochistan at the mercy of presently elected office-bearers?” the report, a copy of which is available with The Express Tribune, stated. In the three-page report, Khakwani and Swati recommended courting ‘notable tribal figures’ into joining the PTI, “keeping in view the peculiar situation in Balochistan, where clans and tribes hold sway over the electorate.”

“However, the selection of such individuals must be done at the highest level in the party and not left to elected officials in Balochistan,” it added.

Tareen while speaking to The Express Tribune said that Suri was removed from the post because of his bad performance in the local bodies elections. “Azam Swati and I were appointed by the chairman as he is authorised to do so by the Central Executive Committee. The previous secretary general became K-P chief minister and Swati replaced Asad Qaiser as K-P President after he was appointed as K-P assembly speaker,” Tareen said.

Published in The Express Tribune, January 24^th, 2014.