ISLAMABAD: Caretaker Prime Minister Anwaar-ul-Haq Kakar said on Thursday it would be “illegal” to block former premier Imran Khan’s Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) from contesting upcoming general elections, amid widespread complaints of a crackdown against the party.

Khan has been in jail since August after he was convicted for failing to disclose assets earned from the sale of state gifts while he was PM from 2018-2022. He denies any wrongdoing, saying these and other charges against him are politically motivated to keep him and the PTI from contesting elections due on Feb. 8. The military, whom Khan blames for having a hand in the crackdown against his party, says it does not interfere in political affairs. 

On Thursday, the PTI said it would file a petition in the Supreme Court seeking its “intervention” to ensure no tactics were employed to keep the party from contesting the upcoming polls. The statement came after the Islamabad High Court (IHC) rejected Khan’s plea to suspend his conviction, meaning he remains barred from contesting elections for five years as convicts under Pakistani law are barred from running for public office.

Meanwhile, there have been widespread allegations from PTI this week over the mishandling of its potential candidates and use of state machinery to push them out of polls by denying them nomination papers.

“It would be illegal to stop the Pakistan Tehreek-e- Insaf (PTI) from taking part in the elections,” Kakar was quoted as saying by state-run APP in an interview on Thursday. “There is no policy to stop the PTI from organizing public meetings … On the election day, the candidates of PTI would be in the field and the voters would be voting for them.”

A caretaker government under Kakar is running the country until the national election is held and a winning party can secure a parliamentary majority and select a new prime minister.

But questions surround the legitimacy of the election, if Khan, the main opposition leader and arguably the country’s most popular politician, cannot contest. Khan and his party have openly complained of a crackdown since the ex-PM’s brief arrest on May 9 unleashed nationwide protests in which his followers attacked and damaged government and military properties, including Lahore’s Jinnah House, the residence of a top army commander. The army and government at the time of PM Shehbaz Sharif vowed to punish the perpetrators, including by trying them in military courts.

Thousands of Khan supporters, including senior members of his party, were subsequently arrested and many still remain behind bars. Dozens of PTI leaders, including some of his closest aides, deserted him, announcing they were leaving the PTI or politics. Khan has said his associates are being forced out of the PTI under duress by the military in a maneuver to dismantle his party before elections. The army denies this.