ISLAMABAD: Former Prime Minister Imran Khan’s Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) is hopeful it can win back at least 78 reserved seats in the parliament that were allotted to rival parties after Feb. 8 general elections, a spokesperson for Khan said on Tuesday.

Weeks before the national election, Khan’s PTI was stripped of its iconic election symbol of the cricket bat on technical grounds, and all its candidates had to contest polls as independent candidates. After the election in which Khan-backed independents won the most seats overall, they joined the Sunni Ittehad Council (SIC) to claim a share of the reserved seats in the parliament for women and religious minorities. Under Pakistan’s election rules, political parties are allotted reserved seats in proportion to the number of parliamentary seats they win in the election. This completes the National Assembly’s total strength of 336 seats.

However, Pakistan’s election commission (ECP) had ruled in March that the Khan-backed SIC party was not eligible for extra reserved seats in the legislature, dealing a blow to the embattled group’s governing prospects and proving to be a major setback for Khan, who is in jail following a string of convictions. The election regulator’s decision was upheld by the Peshawar High Court but last month the Supreme Court overruled the verdict, followed by the ECP suspending 77 lawmakers from Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif’s ruling coalition. 

A 13-member bench of the Supreme Court, a full court, is now hearing a set of petitions filed by the chairman of the SIC, challenging the denial of the reserved seats to the party and their distribution to other parties that are now part of the Sharif-led ruling coalition.

“The reserved seats are our right as per the constitution, how can the election commission deprive us of our legal right,” Advocate Naeem Haider Panjutha, a spokesperson for Khan, told Arab News.

“We are quite hopeful the top court will provide us justice by returning our stolen mandate,” he said.

The party’s legal team would present a “robust case” in the Supreme Court to win back the 78 reserved seats in the National Assembly and provincial assemblies, Panjutha added. 

“JUSTICE FROM THE COURTS”

With the ECP’s notification suspending 77 lawmakers, the strength in the National Assembly of PM Sharif’s ruling Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) reduced from 121 to 107 while that of its main coalition partner, the Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP), is down from 72 to 67. 

This means the ruling coalition has lost its two-thirds majority in the National Assembly, with its numerical strength decreasing to 209 from 228. In the 336-member National Assembly, the figure to attain two-thirds majority is 224, without which the government cannot push through constitutional amendments.

Sharif formed a weak coalition with other parties after February general elections produced a hung parliament. The PML-N’s 79 and the PPP’s 54 seats together made a simple majority in parliament to form a government and they also roped in smaller parties in the coalition.

Candidates backed by Khan won the most seats, 93, but did not have the numbers to form a government. Khan and his party have rejected the results of the elections, alleging widespread rigging.

Khan’s party got other good news this week as the Islamabad High Court overturned the leader’s conviction on charges of leaking state secrets. Earlier this year, Khan, 71, had been sentenced to 10 years in prison by a lower court for making public a classified cable sent to Islamabad by Pakistan’s ambassador in Washington in 2022. He has been in jail since August last year and faces a slew of legal cases. 

“Our leadership and workers have been implicated in hundreds of bogus cases,” Panjutha said, “and gradually we are getting justice from the courts.”

ISLAMABAD: Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif embarked on a five-day official trip to China on Tuesday, saying he was hopeful his visit would give fresh impetus to bilateral ties and inaugurate a new phase of a multibillion-dollar joint economic corridor project.

At the top of the agenda of Sharif’s June 4-8 visit will be upgrading and enhancing the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC), a flagship of Beijing’s Belt and Road Initiative and through which it has pledged over $60 billion in Pakistan. Various power and infrastructure projects have already been built in Pakistan under the CPEC scheme but the implementation of various projects has slowed in recent months.

Security of Chinese workers in Pakistan is also expected to come under discussion, weeks after five Chinese workers and their Pakistani driver were killed on Mar. 26 on their way to the Dasu hydropower project in Pakistan’s northwestern Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province. Beijing is pressing Islamabad to guarantee the safety of Chinese organizations and personnel working there.

“China has eternal friendship with Pakistan and we trust each other from day one,” Sharif said in a video message before beginning his journey. “We discuss all issues like a family through mutual consultations.”

The prime minister said CPEC had brought “immense prosperity” in Pakistan, giving the example of power projects that had rejuvenated local industries and agriculture.

“Our visit today will set another high trajectory for this friendship,” he added. “And it will usher CPEC into a new era.”

Sharif’s first stop is Shenzhen for a business forum, followed by visits to Xi’an and Beijing as well as to economic and agricultural zones in China. During the visit, Sharif will meet Xi, Premier Li Qiang and the chairman of the Standing Committee of the National People’s Congress Zhao Leji.

“An important aspect of the PM’s visit will be meetings with corporate executives of leading Chinese companies dealing in oil and gas, energy, ICT [information and communication technology], and emerging technologies,” Pakistani foreign office spokesperson Mumtaz Zahra Baloch said in a statement on Monday. 

B2B MEETINGS

In a video message ahead of his departure for China, Planning Minister Ahsan Iqbal said a large number of Pakistani and Chinese companies would be participating in a business forum being held on Wednesday, June 5, in Shenzhen.

“During the business forum, MoUs and agreements for cooperation and partnership between Pakistan and Chinese companies will be signed,” Ahsan said.

The information ministry said 79 Pakistani companies were visiting China for business-to-business meetings and to attend the business forum. 

“The Pakistani delegation has arrived for business-to-business meetings in Shenzhen, China,” the information ministry said. “Representatives of 79 Pakistani companies will meet Chinese companies. The Prime Minister will also participate in the business forum and hold talks.”

The PM’s China visit comes at a time when Pakistan is looking to boost foreign investment to support its fragile economy after averting a default last year, thanks to a $3 billion International Monetary Fund (IMF) bailout. 

Chinese investment and financial support since 2013 have been key for the South Asian nation’s struggling economy, including the rolling over of loans so that Islamabad is able to meet external financing needs at a time its foreign reserves are critically low.