ISLAMABAD: Former prime minister Imran Khan’s Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) party said on Thursday it has filed a petition in the Supreme Court, seeking its “intervention” to ensure that no tactics are employed to keep the party from contesting the upcoming national elections.
The party issued the statement after the Islamabad High Court (IHC) dismissed Khan’s petition on Thursday, which sought the suspension of a trial court verdict that found him guilty of “corrupt practices.” The verdict means Khan remains barred from contesting elections for five years.
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 the charges are politically motivated to keep him and the PTI from contesting elections. The military, whom Khan blames for having a hand in the crackdown against his party, strongly denies the allegations.
The PTI said its candidates are unable to submit their nomination papers, have been facing arrests, and that their houses are being “raided and ransacked.” The party accused police of “taking everyone representing them in the election commission, in custody.”
“Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf has filed a petition in the Supreme Court requesting intervention to ensure no tactics should be employed stopping PTI from contesting election,” the party said.
Khan’s close aide and former finance minister Hammad Azhar wrote on social media platform X that his house in Lahore had been raided on Thursday by men wearing masks.
“My mother was alone in the house at that time,” he wrote.
In an earlier post, Azhar alleged that returning officers were not accepting nomination papers filed by PTI candidates.
“This follows months of arbitrary arrests, abductions & torture of activists belonging to the party led by Imran Khan who himself is in prison on bogus charges,” he wrote.
Pakistan’s Caretaker Prime Minister Anwaar-ul-Haq Kakar has repeatedly denied Khan’s accusations, saying that all parties would be provided a “level playing field,” a euphemism for fair competition in elections.
A caretaker government under Kakar is running the country until the national election is held on February 8 and a winning party can secure a parliamentary majority and select a new prime minister.
Questions surround the legitimacy of the election, whenever it is held, as Khan, the main opposition leader and arguably the country’s most popular politician, cannot fight this election.
