Pakistan ex-PM Khan barred from election candidacy, says party

LAHORE, Pakistan

Jailed former Pakistan prime minister Imran Khan and most of his supporters have been rejected as candidates for the Feb. 8 election, party officials said Sunday after nominations for the ballot closed.

Khan has been in prison since August, facing trial over a slew of cases he insists have been orchestrated to prevent him from contesting the election as the figurehead of his Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) party.

The former cricket star was found guilty of graft earlier this year, but a court suspended his three-year sentence and the conviction is being appealed.

The Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) disqualified him from office over the conviction, but PTI turned in nomination papers for Khan last week regardless.

"Nomination papers of almost all national and provincial leaders of PTI, including Imran Khan, have been rejected," said PTI spokesman Raoof Hasan. "90 to 95 percent of our candidates' papers have been rejected."

Hasan told AFP candidates were being blocked as part of an "agenda" to prevent PTI from contesting the election.

"All tactics are being tried for this purpose but, under any circumstances, we will not leave the political ground and will not boycott the elections," he said.

An election commission official told AFP various PTI candidates had been rebuffed including Khan, based on his conviction.

The commission is due to announce the final list of contesting candidates on Jan. 23.

PTI's claim it is already being frozen out of the electoral process is likely to lead to a slew of appeals to the ECP and various courts.

"We will stay in the elections and will file appeals against all these decisions in each of the constituencies and will use all our constitutional, legal and political options," Hasan said.

Khan, 71, was ousted last year after falling out with Pakistan's powerful military leaders who backed him into power in 2018.

In opposition, he waged an unprecedented campaign of defiance against the military establishment which has directly ruled the nation for much of its history.

He accused them of engineering his removal from office in a no-confidence vote via a US-backed conspiracy and of plotting an assassination attempt that saw him wounded.

After Khan's brief detention in May sparked unrest, PTI has been the subject of a widespread crackdown, with leading figures either jailed or forced to leave the party.