Imran Kahn

ISLAMABAD: The Muttahida Qaumi Movement of Altaf Hussain and Pakistan Tehreek Insaf of Imran Khan have still to qualify for the upcoming general elections, it has been learnt. Only about 123 out of the 227 registered political parties in the country have so far qualified to contest the upcoming general elections.

Those that have qualified include major political parties, like Asif Zardari’s Pakistan People’s Party, Nawaz Sharif’s Pakistan Muslim League-N, Shujaat Hussain’s Pakistan Muslim League-Q, Asfandyar Wali’s Awami National Party and Fazlur Rehman’s Jamiat Ulema Islam.

However, two other major political parties, Imran Khan’s Pakistan Tehreek Insaf and Altaf Hussain’s Muttahida Qaumi Movement, have not been able to secure eligibility due to different reasons.

A senior official at the ECP said here yesterday that the total number of political parties in the country was 227, and so far only 123 of them had completed formalities for contesting the general elections. 

Some 104 political parties have not been able to meet the different obligations announced by the ECP to qualify for the general elections.

The ECP official said the PTI had so far not met the condition of holding intra-party elections, although it was in the process of doing this. This is the sole reason keeping it ineligible for the elections. The official further said that the MQM had not submitted details of its assets and party funds to the ECP, and due to this the party had yet to qualify for the elections.

The ECP official explained that in the next 10 days the Commission would invite applications for the issuance of election symbols, and the PTI and MQM still had the opportunity to submit the details of intra-party elections and details of their assets and party funds.

After receiving the applications for the election symbols, the chief election commissioner would invite the main representatives of the political parties and would hold discussions on a number of issues. 

Internews