PTI-supported election winners to ‘join’ Sunni Ittehad Council

The Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) has decided to form an “election alliance” with Sunni Ittehad Council (SIC) in order to win reserved seats in national and provincial assemblies, reported 24NewsHD TV channel on Sunday.

Reali­sing that the lack of reserved seats would severely dent their chances of forming a government in any assembly, the PTI has decided to let independent election winners, supported by it, to join the Sunni Ittehad Council.

The party maintained that it will try to form a government in Punjab from the SIC platform.

The issue of reserved seats would definitely be a roadblock for the PTI in its attempts to claim a majority to form a government in any assembly.

Even though the PTI may have the highest number of directly-elected members in the National Assembly, their status as independents means they do not qualify for the reserved seats for minorities and women that are allotted to the parties on the basis of lists provided to the ECP before the general elections.

After writing off the PML-N and PPP, the largest parties in the Centre and the provinces, the PTI looked to pursue a partnership with one of the others in the electoral mix and now it decided to join the SIC.

In a post uploaded on X platform on Sunday, the PTI has said it wanted the “real mandate” of the public to be recognised, clarifying that it was not demanding the annulment of general elections. “The results of the elections should reflect the actual votes cast by the people,” it added.

The PTI said that all the institutions in Pakistan needed to ensure that only those who are the real representatives of the Pakistani people are seated in the Parliament.

Meanwhile, PTI Senior Vice-President Sher Afzal Marwat said his residence was raided last night and his laptop was confiscated. “I managed to run away from my home and now I am at a safe place,” he wrote on X, adding that he would approach the court against the “criminal act”.

Reporter Usman Khadim Kamboh