PTI dissolves organisational structure following setback in KP LG polls: Fawad

• Fawad says party members had distributed tickets to family members for LG polls in KP.
• Says PM Imran Khan very upset for not distributing tickets on the basis of merit. 
• Party decides to form a new constitutional committee.

ISLAMABAD: Federal Minister for Information and Broadcasting Fawad Chaudhry on Friday announced that after the PTI suffered a huge blow in the first phase of the recently held local body elections in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, the party has decided to dissolve its organisational structure.

Addressing a press conference in Islamabad after a meeting of the party spokespersons, with Prime Minister Imran Khan in the chair, the information minister said that the PTI has decided to form a new constitutional committee to devise a strategy for the second phase of the local bodies election in KP.

The committee, according to Fawad, includes Pervez Khattak, Mahmood Khan and Murad Saeed, Asad Qaiser, Ali Amin Gandapur from KP; Shah Mahmood Qureshi, Hammad Azhar, Fawad Chaudhry, Chaudhary Mohammad Sarwar, Saifullah Niazi, Amir Kayani, Usman Buzdar from Punjab; Mir Khan Muhammad Jamali and Qasim Suri from Balochistan; Imran Ismail, Ali Haider Zaidi from Sindh; and Asad Umar from the capital.

Speaking about the outcome of the polls, the minister said that he has received complaints that the tickets for the recently held LG polls in the province were distributed among families of party members.

"Since party tickets were distributed on the basis of nepotism as against the principles of fairness and merit, PM Imran Khan is very upset," said Fawad, adding that in the light of the situation, the party has decided to dissolve its organisational structure across Pakistan.

Providing details, Fawad said that the new committee of the PTI will have the top leadership on board and that tickets for elections will now be issued by the party under a new mechanism.

Expressing confidence in his party, Fawad said that the PTI is the biggest political entity in KP as well as the only national party in the country.

"If the PTI goes down, then Pakistan's politics will go down too, Fawad said.

What did PM Imran Khan say during meeting?

During the meeting of the party spokespersons, PM Imran Khan expressed his surprise over PML-N and PPP celebrating after the KP local government elections, sources said.

"PTI's voters and the masses are still with us," the prime minister had said, as the JUI-F emerged victorious in the first phase of the local government elections according to unofficial results. 

He said that he was awaiting the Election Commission of Pakistan's (ECP) final results and that further decisions would be taken in light of the results.

Talking about the Opposition parties, he said there have been rumours of ending former prime minister Nawaz Sharif's sentence. "How can the sentence of a convicted person be overturned?"

The premier recalled that the court had disqualified Nawaz in the Panama Leaks case, and to date, he was unable to provide a money trail for his assets.

"How can a convicted person become the prime minister after having his sentence revoked?" he questioned, according to sources.

PM's meeting with KP CM

A day ago, PM Imran Khan had held a meeting with the Chief Minister of KP, Mahmood Khan, and had said that tickets will not be awarded on the basis of favouritism and bribery in future as the PTI faced a major setback in the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa local body polls due to "incompetent" people.

Sources said that the province's chief presented a report to the premier on why the party suffered losses in the local body polls, sources said.

Sources said that the report mentioned the lawmakers who did not support the party during the polls, allocation of party tickets for the elections, and other issues.

The report attributed PTI’s defeat in the first phase of the elections to "mismanagement" and that "workers of the same party contested elections against each other."

Sources further added that the report cited "traditional politics and hereditary issues" as reasons behind the defeat in the local body elections, adding that the distribution of party tickets was also a reason behind PTI’s failure.

According to the report, the poor selection of candidates led to disagreements between party workers; hence the party wasn’t united during the first phase of the elections.

During the meeting, the premier expressed his dissatisfaction over the party's failure in the local body elections, saying that Khyber Pakhtunkhwa was their [PTI] baseline and the party lost the election due to “internal incompetence.”