Pakistan’s jailed Khan picks lieutenant as candidate for prime minister

By Aamir Latif

KARACHI, Pakistan (AA) - The Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) party of jailed former Prime Minister Imran Khan, named chief organizer Omar Ayub Khan as its candidate for the premiership on Thursday amid a hung parliament following a high-stake election Feb. 8.

“Omar Ayub Khan will be our candidate for the post of prime minister, PTI’s central leader, and a former speaker of the lower house,” or the National Assembly, Asad Qaisar said at a news conference after meeting with the incarcerated former premier in the northeastern garrison city of Rawalpindi.

Ayub Khan, a grandson of Pakistan’s former military ruler, Gen. Ayub Khan, has served as federal minister in different governments, aside from being elected as a lawmaker from the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML (N)) party of three-time Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif in the 2013 elections.

The PML (N)-led coalition, which includes center-left Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP), has already named former Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif for the coveted post for a second term.

A National Assembly session to elect a new leader of the house is expected to be summoned between Feb. 22 and 29.

The crucial Feb. 8 elections resulted in a hung parliament with no party securing enough seats to form a government with a simple majority, triggering an intense race to stitch coalitions.

According to the latest tally prepared through election results announced by the Election Commission of Pakistan, the PML (N)-led coalition has a combined strength of more than 150 of 266 seats in the National Assembly.

Ahsan Iqbal, a central PML (N) leader, claimed the coalition has surpassed the number required for a simple majority.

A party requires 134 seats (169 after allocation of reserved seats for women and religious minorities) to form a government with a simple majority.

The PML (N), PPP and MQM received 75, 54, and 17 seats, respectively, in last week’s elections. Six independent lawmakers have also joined the PML (N), raising its strength to 81.

Although independent candidates backed by the PTI have won the highest number of seats, 93, the party could not forge a coalition to reach a simple majority.

The National Assembly has 336 seats, with 60 reserved for women and 10 for religious minorities.

They are proportionately distributed among parties according to their election performance. Any party that wants its leader as prime minister will need 169 votes in the House.

- Joint protest campaign against alleged rigging

Qaisar said his party would launch a nationwide protest, along with other political parties, including arch-rivals, against alleged rigging in the Feb. 8 polls.

Several parties have already been on the streets demonstrating against alleged rigging -- a charge the government and the election commission reject.

Qaisar said he had been given an “assignment” to engage with all parties protesting against the poll results, including mainstream religiopolitical parties Jamaat-e-Islami and Jamiat Ulema Islam of Maulana Fazl-ur-Rahman, and the nationalist Awami National Party.

The development is seen as a “change” in an otherwise rigid stance of the PTI, which earlier refused to talk to opponents.

He said Imran Khan would give a date later Thursday for a nationwide protest against alleged rigging.

In a related development, the Election Commission of Pakistan-administered Kashmir has issued a bailable arrest warrant for Ali Amin Gandapur, the PTI's nominee for chief minister of northwestern Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province (KP), citing contempt of court.

It comes after Gandapur repeatedly failed to appear before the election commission in a contempt case. Gandapur served as federal minister for Kashmir Affairs in Khan’s government from 2018 to 2022.

- US should pressure government about rigging

Reacting to the US reaction to the controversial results of last week’s election, the PTI said that Washington “should further press the government on rigging.”

The US, UK and the EU have separately expressed concerns about the electoral process and urged an investigation into alleged irregularities.

“This cosmetic statement will not work. They (US) should further press the government on rigging,” said Mohammad Ali Saif, who accompanied Qaisar at the news conference.

The PTI accuses Washington of being involved in the ouster of the jailed former prime minister through a no-trust vote in April 2022. Islamabad and Washington deny the charge.

Rejecting criticism by some countries, including the US about the Feb. 8 elections, Pakistan's Foreign Ministry reiterated Thursday the electoral process was an "internal sovereign affair."

During a weekly news conference in Islamabad, Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Mumtaz Zahra Baloch said: "We are surprised by the negative tone of some of these statements, which neither take into account the complexity of the electoral process, nor acknowledge the free and enthusiastic exercise of the right to vote by tens of millions of Pakistanis."