ISLAMABAD: A Pakistani high court on Tuesday restored cricket bat as the election symbol of former prime minister Imran Khan’s party and suspended the Election Commission of Pakistan’s (ECP) earlier decision to strip the party of the iconic symbol, party leaders said.
Pakistan’s election oversight body on Dec. 22 ruled that intraparty polls of Khan’s Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) party, held earlier this month, violated regulations and declared them null and void. As a result, the ECP had stripped the party of its electoral symbol.
The judgment came days after a disgruntled PTI leader, Akbar S. Babar, challenged the PTI’s intraparty elections in the ECP, urging the watchdog to declare the exercise null and void for violating rules. Babar contended the PTI had neither displayed a final list of candidates nor was any paperwork done for the polls.
On Tuesday, the PTI petitioned the Peshawar High Court (PHC) against the ECP's decision. Justice Kamran Hayat after listening to the arguments from the parties suspended the ECP’s decision and adjourned the hearing till the end of winter vacations. “Today, the judges of the Peshawar High Court... have suspended the Election Commission of Pakistan’s order against the PTI, in which the PTI symbol, bat, had been withdrawn,” PTI counsel Ali Zafar told reporters in Peshawar.
“And along with that [the judges] have ordered that our symbol be returned and restored.”
The party could use the symbol in its campaign for the upcoming national elections until the next hearing of the case, Zafar said.
PTI leader Gohar Khan hailed the PHC decision and said it restored the confidence of the masses in the judiciary.
“The Peshawar High Court not just restored our symbol today, but restored the confidence of 250 million people in the judiciary,” he said.
“The court reviewed every section that the election commission’s order was not sustainable, hence that order was suspended and our bat was restored.”
Election symbols are crucial in Pakistan where the adult literacy rate is just 58 percent, according to World Bank data.
The bat symbol is reflective of ex-PM Khan’s past as a successful cricketer, who led Pakistan to their only 50-over World Cup win in 1992, propelling him to an unrivaled position among the country’s cricket greats.
Political analysts told Arab News last week that without the bat symbol, the PTI’s candidates would have to contest the upcoming elections scheduled for Feb. 8 as independent candidates.
“An election symbol is considered the soul of a political party and the Article 17 of the constitution states that a symbol is a basic right of a political party, its members and supporters,” Zafar told reporters in Peshawar.
Khan, who is in prison since August after being convicted in a graft case, has accused Pakistan’s powerful military, the ECP, and his political rivals of colluding to keep him and the PTI away from elections. He denies any wrongdoing and says the charges against him are politically motivated.
The Pakistani military, the election regulator, and the caretaker government deny his allegations.
