Imran Khan conditionally allowed to take oath as Pak National Assembly member
Islamabad, Aug 7 : Pakistan’s Election Commission today conditionally allowed Imran Khan to take oath as member of the National Assembly as it withheld his victory notifications from two constituencies and declared him winner from three others from where he contested in the July 25 general elections.
The 65-year-old Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf chairman has been allowed to take oath as member of the National Assembly from one of the three constituencies subject to the decision of the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) in the pending case of violation of the election code of conduct against him.
It was not yet clear whether Khan can take oath as Pakistan’s next prime minister.
Legally, only those candidates can take oath as members of the National Assembly whose notification of success has been issued and their names published in the official gazette.
Khan, set to become Pakistan’s next prime minister after being nominated by his party, had contested and won from five constituencies.
The ECP has withheld victory notifications of Khan from NA-53 (Islamabad-II) and NA-131 (Lahore-IX) constituencies.
Notification from Lahore seat has been stayed on the order of Lahore High Court and from Islamabad due to pending case about allegation of violation of code of conduct as he stamped his ballot paper in front of TV cameras and violated secrecy.
The ECP has notified him as winner on NA-35 (Bannu), NA-95 (Mianwali) and NA-243 (Karachi). But the victory on all the three seats is conditional on the decision of code of conduct case against him in the ECP.
Khan is facing violation of code of conduct case for using inappropriate language during election campaign.
In case of conviction by the ECP, Khan will be disqualified from all seats.
But given his huge success and overall political environment, there are more chances that he will be only served a warning.
From NA-53 (Islamabad-II), Khan had defeated former prime minister Shahid Khaqan Abbasi. The PTI chief had received 92,891 votes while the PML-N leader managed to get 44,314 votes.
The toughest competition to Khan came from Lahore constituency NA-131 where he was up against Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz leader Khawaja Saad Rafique.
The notification for NA-131 success was withheld as the Lahore High Court has reserved its verdict on former railways minister’s plea for recounting of votes in the constituency, Geo News reported.
Earlier, some media outlets reported that the electoral body has withheld results from all five constituencies Khan won. However, it was later clarified that the ECP held back notifications of only two constituencies, The News reported.
The ECP move comes a day after the former cricket hero was formally nominated as its candidate by the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) for the slot of prime minister. He is expected to take oath for the post on August 14 or 15.
The results of 14 other constituencies have not been specified for various reasons, Dawn news reported.
On July 29, the ECP announced unofficial results of all 841 national and provincial assembly seats up for grabs in the 2018 general elections. A total of 270 National Assembly (NA) and 571 Provincial Assembly seats together comprised the total number.
Sharing preliminary party tallies, an ECP official said the PTI was leading with 115 NA seats. The count for the PML-N and the Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) stood at 64 and 43 seats respectively.
