ISLAMABAD - In an apparent “fair fixed-match”, the ‘Insaf Panel’ led by Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf (PTI) chief Imran Khan on Tuesday won the party intra-party polls but a low turnout exposed Khan’s flagging popularity within party ranks.
Out of the total around 2.6 million registered votes, Imran-led Insaf Panel could only secure seven percent votes clearly indicating the waning popularity of the party chief among die-hard party supporters.
But if PTI Chief Election Commissioner Senator Azam Khan Swati is to be believed, who said that only 1.7 million voters were issued ballot papers through SMS voting technology, the Khan-led Insaf Panel could only secure 11 percent votes. Similarly, a total of 2,56,957 votes were polled in the two-day-long exercise, thus taking the turnout to only 15 percent indicating the party workers were least bothered to participate in these polls.
According to an announcement made by PTI’s election commission, the official results of intra-party election-2017 received from all four provinces were finalised in a meeting of provincial and regional commissioners chaired by Chief Election Commissioner Senator Swati. The election commission said that the ‘Insaf Panel’ won the election securing 1,89,055 votes and the rival ‘Ehtisab Penal’ secured 41,647 votes while 26,255 votes were rejected because of wrong voter names, “empty space” or voter’s CNIC number in addition to other reasons. Punjab topped the list in casting votes while Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa ranked second in the list.
Senator Swati describing the reasons for low turnout said that 1.7 million SMS were sent to voters after due verification and the remaining voters out of a total around 2.6 million could not be sent messages because of non-verification.
“Out of 1.7 million short messages, these could not be delivered to around 0.4 million voters because they had blocked promotion advertisements. Similarly, some voters sent us back SMS with the reply of yes or no, but we could not receive because they did not have enough money in their phone accounts required to send an SMS. We are rectifying the mistakes and our election was much better than that of other political parties,” Senator Swati claimed.
Earlier, critics observed that PTI’s intra-party polls were a contest between the “well-known” and the “unseen” as the big guns are part of the “Insaf Panel’ while the ‘Ehtisab Panel’ was comprised of mostly those not very familiar even in the party rank and file.
The electorate voted for the whole panel having 14 positions in total—a new modus operandi for intra-party polls introduced by the party recently through amendments to its constitution having the approval of the Central Executive Committee (CEC).
Earlier in such polls, a separate contest was held for each position reflecting more transparency in the process.
The procedure set for the intra-party polls ultimately gave Imran and his close aides an opportunity to sweep the election as a panel. Because one vote for one panel automatically went to all candidates of that panel.
The independent observers say that the move has made the polls largely ceremonial, as is done in other parties, only to meet the requirement of the Political Parties Order, 2002 and the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP).
The winner ‘Insaf Panel’ included Shah Mahmood Qureshi Vice-Chairman; Jehangir Khan Tareen Secretary-General; Dr Arif Alvi President Sindh; Yar Muhammad Rind President Balochistan; Ishaq Khan Khakwani President South Punjab; Abdul Aleem Khan President Central Punjab; Aamir Mehmood Kiyani President North Punjab; Faizullah Kamoka President West Punjab; Ali Amin Gundapur President South Region Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa (KP); Shah Farman President Peshawar Region; Mehmood Khan President Malakand Region KP; Zar Gul Khan President Hazara Region and Raja Khurram Nawaz President Islamabad Region.
On the other hand, the losing ‘Ehtisab Panel’ included Naik Muhammad Khan, Syed Aftab Shah, Senator (retd) Dr Shehzad Waseem, Raja Azhar Khan, Sardar Khadim Hussain Wardak, Muhammad Ibrahim Khan, Mansha Sindhu, Yusuf Khattak, Major (retd) Abdur Rehman Rana, Ziaullah Bangash, Syed Abdul Saboor Shah, Abdul Munim Khan, Abdul Haque Khan and Raja Qaisar Ghaffar.
Polling was held between Sunday and Monday.
The basic members of the PTI cast their votes through a ballot paper (sent via SMS) on their cell phones. The SMS asked voters to reply with ‘1’ to vote for Insaf Panel and ‘2’ for Ehtisab Panel.
In May, the ECP had barred the PTI from contesting the next election on its election symbol ‘bat’ stating that the party had failed to hold intra-party polls even after a hiatus of four years as required under the Political Parties Order, 2002. Under the order, it is mandatory for all political parties to hold such polls at least in three tiers.