ISLAMABAD  -  An ongoing internal strife within the beleaguered Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) has not only damaged the party’s narrative on al­leged massive rigging in general elections but also created a new crisis within the party of former prime minister Imran Khan that is already struggling to get out of troubled waters since May 9 violence.

Until last week, the par­ty was making headlines about alleged manipula­tions in Form-45s during the crucial February 8 polls when its firebrand leader Sher Afzal Marwat gave a controversial statement that PTI lost reserved seats in the parliament due to its wrong decision to enter into an alliance with the Sunni Ittehad Council (SIC).

Other senior PTI lead­ers including Senator Syed Ali Zafar and Walid Iqbal followed the suit and criti­cized the decision of the party to join ranks of SIC in a bid to secure seats re­served for women and mi­norities in the national and provincial assemblies.

On March 4, the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) had rejected the plea of PTI-backed SIC seeking al­location of quota of reserved seats in the light of provi­sions of Article 51(6) of the Constitution and Section 104 of the Elections Act, 2017.

There is some serious re­sentment within the party over these conflicting state­ments, which have changed direction of the overall nar­rative of the party on rigging to its decision-making mech­anisms, a senior PTI leader.

“Now we see a debate on the national media that revolves around whether PTI’s decision to make an al­liance with SIC was right or wrong instead of highlight­ing the party’s narrative on rigging and release of po­litical prisoners,” the leader said, wishing anonymity.

Political analysts and many within PTI believe that there is a crisis-like sit­uation as different groups within the party are show­ing up against one another publicly, sending a wave of confusion and resent­ment among middle and lower cadres of the party. They fear that the situa­tion would worsen further if some practical steps were not taken to stop the party from operating in the form of different groups fighting against one another.

A new leadership, most of them lawyers, has emerged within the PTI after many either left the party follow­ing May 9 attacks on civil and military installation or oth­ers are in jail, said senior politi­cal analyst Zaigham Khan. “They are still jostling for power and an infighting is going on within the party,” he said.

WEAK CHAIN OF COMMUNICATION

Information Secretary PTI Raoof Hasan admitted that conflicting statements were damaging for the actual narra­tive of the party but ruled out the situation would be dam­aging in future. “We have sur­vived in the past under critical conditions and will survive in future,” Hasan told The Nation in an interview while sitting in his small office at the party’s Central Secretariat.

He said the biggest problem for the PTI was that its chain of communication with impris­oned party founder Imran Khan was weak and they were getting information from him in bits and pieces. “The senior party leader­ship is not allowed to meet with the former prime minister regu­larly and those lawyers visiting him are not allowed to take even a piece of paper along with them to get some notes,” he added.

Analyst Zaigham endorsed the view that the absence of some regular communication of the PTI leadership with Khan was creating problems for the par­ty in decision-making. “Khan has been meeting some specif­ic people while in jail,” he said, adding that there was some weak feed­back mechanism available with the party leader due to the same reason.

Zaigham argued that there was neither any threat of survival to the PTI as long as Khan is avail­able to the party nor to its mass popularity due to the internal strife. “But this ongoing fight­ing and weak communication is damaging for the party and can make a crisis for it,” he added.

DELEGATION OF POWERS

Information Secretary Hasan believes the notion was wrong that PTI would have secured reserved seats by entering into an alliance with any oth­er party that had contested the election and submitted a list of its candidates with the electoral watchdog. “I feel it was written on the wall that PTI will not be given reserved seats,” he said, adding that the attitude of the state institu­tions and the powers-that-be reflected they are not ready to give a space to the party.

Hasan said PTI had very lim­ited options to make an alliance with another party and it was more comfortable with the SIC.

On the other hand, PTI’s Khyber Pakhtunkhwa chapter spokesperson Moazzam Butt Advocate has said in an inter­view that the party would have secured reserved seats in the province had it joined ranks of the PTI-Parliamentarian – a party led by seasoned poli­tician Pervez Khattak that had submitted a list of its candi­dates to get quota of reserved seats. He also said PTI was close to sealing a deal with the PTI-Parliamentarian but failed to do so due to some “miscom­munication” among the party leadership.

Analyst Zaigham says that PTI founder Khan should delegate its powers to new chairman Go­har Ali Khan to avoid this “mis­communication fiasco”, which is damaging for the party. “Go­har is a capable person and will make mistakes but good deci­sions are expected from him,” he said.