Imran Khan-backed winning independent candidates in Pakistan’s national elections are joining the country’s Sunni Ittihad Council (SIC). Imran’s party PTI Chairman Gahar Ali Khan made this announcement on Monday.
He said PTI-backed candidates who were elected from the National Assembly including Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa and Punjab would join the Sunni Ittehad Council.
Meanwhile, Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N), which got the second highest number of seats in the polls, and Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP), which came in third place, are trying to form a coalition government.
Gahar Ali said, “There has been a formal agreement to join the party (Sunni Ittehad) to get reserved seats and protect our elected members.” We will submit the related documents to the ECP.
Pakistan has 70 reserved seats in the National Assembly and 227 in the Provincial Assemblies. These seats will be distributed among the political parties only in proportion to the winning candidates. But since PTI was not allowed to participate in the elections, the winning independent candidates of this party are joining other smaller parties. As a result, the party will secure a significant number of reserved seats in proportion to the number of seats won.
Meanwhile, PTI’s prime ministerial candidate Omar Ayub opined that PTI’s strength will increase as the winning candidates join the Sunni Ittihad. He said that after this step they will be in a position to form the government.
At that time, Omar Ayub expressed his intention to free other leaders of the party including Imran Khan. “Our first task will be to free Imran Khan, Bushra Bibi, Shah Mahmood Qureshi, Parvez Elahi and all our senior leaders,” he said.
