After PTI’s defeat in local government elections in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Prime Minister Imran Khan has said that tickets will not be awarded on the basis of favouritism and bribery in future.
The prime minister’s comments came during a meeting with Chief Minister Mahmood Khan on Wednesday in which he presented a report on reasons for party’s loss in the elections.
It is learnt that the report identified 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 contested elections against each other.”
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 of 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.
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.”
The premier said that in the second phase of local body elections, he would personally decide candidates and would not tolerate favouritism and bribery.
The prime minister directed the chief minister to unite the PTI workers.
He also stated that the party should learn lessons from the results of the first phase as this time indifferences among the party members benefitted the opposition.
Earlier, the Prime Minister’s Office received a report citing reasons for the PTI’s loss in the local body polls in KP. According to the report, merit had been ignored while allocating tickets for the election.
The tickets had been issued to the relatives of the governor, ministers and the lawmakers of the PTI, said the report.
The report said that PTI MPA in Lakki Marwat Dr Hasham Inamullah had been ignored while allocating the tickets and extended his support to the four candidates having the backing of Saifullah brothers. And all of them won the elections, read the report.
In addition, the two candidates backed by MNA Fazal Muhammad Khan lost the elections in Charsadda. The report noted that had the two candidates won, they would have worked in accordance with the wishes of the MNA.
The local leadership ignored a competent worker of PTI, Shafi Jan, and gave a ticket to Shehryar Khan Afridi-backed candidate Salman Khan.
Shafi Jan contested the election as an independent candidate and bagged more votes than the PTI candidate in the constituency.
Similarly, the KP Governor Shah Farman-backed candidate lost elections for the coveted post of Peshawar mayor. Tickets were given to KP Deputy Speaker Mehmood Jan’s brother and provincial Education Minister Shahram Tarakai’s relatives who lost the elections, the report said.
