Internews/Islamabad
The Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) is poised for what its chairman, Imran Khan, claims to be “the most transparent intra-party election,” starting September 15 and ending on October 30.The exercise will start from mid-September in Islamabad and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and will end on September 30, followed by polls from October 1 to October 15 in Punjab, and from October 16 to October 30 in Sindh and Balochistan.Khan continues to be the chairman of the party since it was launched in April 1996, though anyone with party membership can run for the party’s top post as per its constitution, which was recently revamped.Though the party’s senior leaders insist the upcoming electoral process will further consolidate party ranks, there are some who express the fear, privately though, that many may quit in case they do not get desired posts within the PTI fold.Party leaders concede that prior to contesting general elections, likely next in February or March, PTI will undergo a litmus test of how strong it is in maintaining unity in its rank and file no matter how unexpected the intra-party poll results may be to many of its senior members.It is for this reason that the contest is being billed as intriguing for so many heavyweights who will be vying for key slots, including the post of president and vice-chairman, an insider said yesterday.Presently, these two senior posts have been given to Makhdoom Javed Hashmi and Makhdoom Shah Mehmood Qureshi respectively.PTI’s intra-party election is being conducted after a gap of six years at a time when it has grown massively. Those registered with Team Imran have crossed the 10mn mark. Needless to say, a majority of party posts are currently occupied by those appointed through issuance of notifications.Insiders say many prominent party figures have already stepped up contacts with their voters and it will be interesting to see to what extent the old party workers will vote for the candidates.The forthcoming party polls will be entirely different, as an overwhelming majority vying for the party posts will be those who joined Team Imran after his landmark Minar-e-Pakistan rally on October 30 last year.Before the Lahore rally, several political experts did not foresee PTI bagging more than five or six National Assembly seats. But times have changed for the PTI.The PTI election commissioner is justice (retd.) Wajihud din Ahmad while Raoof Hasan has been made secretary of the election commission. The media will be invited to monitor the electoral exercise. Meanwhile, Khan yesterday finally declared his tax returns - which had remained conspicuously incomplete till then.The tax returns were published on the website after a query asking why the tax returns were incomplete. An extra page was added, after which party leader Asad Umar said, “the tax returns issue has now been sorted out”.The additional page stated that Khan paid Rs90,421 income tax in 2009, Rs1.85mn in 2010 and Rs0.32mn in 2011.