ISLAMABAD: Pakistan’s election regulator on Tuesday announced that former prime minister Imran Khan was barred from holding public office for the next five years, days after the ex-premier was convicted in a case involving the sale of state gifts. 

Khan, who was ousted from power in a parliamentary no-trust vote in April last year and has since waged a campaign of defiance against the all-powerful military and the government of PM Shehbaz Sharif, was arrested last Saturday after the Election Commission sentenced him to three years in jail on charges of unlawfully selling state gifts he received during his tenure as premier from 2018 to 2022. This has popularly come to be known as the Toshakhana reference. 

In a notification on Tuesday, the Election Commission said its restriction on Khan came in pursuance of the sentence handed down to the former prime minister after he was found “guilty of corrupt practices.” 

“As a consequence, Mr.Imran Ahmed Khan Niazi has become disqualified under Article 63(1)(h) of the Constitution of the Islamic Republic of Pakistan,” the election regulator said in its notification. 

“Therefore, Mr.Imran Ahmed Khan Niazi is disqualified for a period of five years and is also de-notified as a returned candidate from constituency NA-45 Kurram-1.” 

Khan’s Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf party called the cases against him “sham and frivolous.”

“Someone who doesn’t have a criminal record in all their life end up being framed in nearly 200 odd cases from sedition to blasphemy and even murder with no right given to present his witnesses, no time given to round up the arguments with a decision reached in haste,” the PTI said in a statement shared with media. 

“We are hopeful it’ll be overturned in a higher court.” 

Khan came to power in 2018 with what independent analysts say was the help of the country’s powerful military, which has ruled Pakistan for nearly half of its 75-year history. 

He was subsequently ousted in a parliamentary vote of no-confidence that is widely believed to have taken place because Khan had fallen out with the then military leadership under army chief Gen Qamar Javed Bajwa. The former premier had since been campaigning for snap polls in the South Asian country, which has been embroiled in political unrest and myriad economic crises. 

Khan’s brief arrest in May in another graft case led to violent protests by his supporters who attacked government and military installations, demanding his release. Thousands of his followers have since been arrested and hundreds of party members have defected in what is seen as a crackdown against his party by the army and Sharif government. Both deny the political victimization of Khan and his party.