ISLAMABAD  -  Barrister Gohar Ali Khan was de­clared the PTI chairman again in the fresh intra-party elections, according to the results shared by the party’s spokesperson and Chief Election Commissioner Raoof Hassan here on Sunday.

Gohar Ali Khan won the chairman’s election unop­posed, Hassan announced dur­ing a press conference. This is the third time PTI has con­ducted intra-party polls in the past two years following its December 2 elections which re­sulted in its electoral ‘Bat’ sym­bol ultimately being revoked by the Supreme Court. Gohar was elected the PTI chairman, also unopposed, for the first time in December 2 elections.

Prior to that, the party held elections in June 2022, which the ECP had annulled on November 23, terming them “highly objec­tionable”. Following the decision to scheduling the new intra-par­ty polls on March 3, jailed PTI leader Imran Khan had nomi­nated Barrister Ali Zafar for the position of chairman. However, days later, according to sources, Zafar refused to accept the chair­manship, following which Imran nominated Barrister Gohar again for the party’s chief

Addressing the press confer­ence, Hassan announced that Gohar had won the chairman’s position unopposed since there were no other contestants. He said initially there were four ap­plications for the position from Omar Ayub, Ashraf Jabbar, Nav­eed Anjum Khan and Barrister Gohar. Three applications were accepted, while that of Nav­eed was rejected.Naveed’s application was rejected because he contested the February 8 general elec­tions against a PTI-support­ed candidate, after which his party membership was cancelled on February 11, Raoof added. He noted that a second reason for the re­jection was that despite Naveed applying for party membership again on Feb­ruary 24, a precondition to contesting the intra-party elections was to have been an uninterrupted member for at least 6 months. Lat­er, Jabbar and Ayub also “graciously withdrew their applications for the sake of party unity and harmo­ny”, Raoof said further. “Be­cause of the same, there were no candidates against Gohar, so we declared him the uncontested winner. He has been elected par­ty chairman unopposed,” Hasan said. Hassan further said that Omar Ayub Khan was also elected PTI’s sec­retary general unopposed, since there were no other nominations for the posi­tion. He said that cumula­tive results for the elections held for the party’s provin­cial presidents will be an­nounced later. He stressed that the new intra-par­ty elections were held in accordance with guide­lines set out by the Elec­tion Commission of Paki­stan, noting that the party’s previous two elections “ran into some trouble” with the electoral watchdog. it is likely that the party will ap­proach the ECP with the no­tified results so as to get the symbol ‘Bat’ again.