Significantly, claims of cracks within the party ranks gained credibility when Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf (PTI) Secretary General Omar Ayub Khan resigned from his party posts.
Dawn was informed by PTI sources that on June 22 Omar Ayub, the opposition leader in the National Assembly, tendered his resignation, which founding chairman Imran Khan accepted.
Even some PTI insiders, who claimed they assumed the founder would not accept the resignation and ask Omar Ayub to stay on, were taken aback by the action.
In his resignation, posted on his official X (formerly Twitter) account, Mr. Omar stated that he could not explain his position as opposition leader in the National Assembly while simultaneously serving as the party’s secretary general.
He also said he would be leaving his position as PTI Central Finance Board chairman, but he would still be working for the party.
“I learned a great deal under your dynamic leadership and tried to perform to the best of my abilities during very turbulent times. PTI family members have faced extreme challenges over the past two years, but they have not wavered, he said in the resignation letter he sent to Imran Khan, a copy of which was also forwarded to party chairman Barrister Gohar Khan.
You have also selected me to lead the opposition in the National Assembly, thus I believe that I am unable to do credit to the job of secretary general. He wrote, “I feel that someone else should be the secretary general to organise the party structure and work under your guidance to prepare PTI for the elections in the near future. Both positions demand complete attention, and given the parliamentary workload in addition to the commitments of the constituency I represent in the National Assembly.”
Re-elected as PTI secretary general last month, Omar Ayub resigned at a time when the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) has not yet deemed its most recent intra-party elections “legitimate.” A case about the distribution of reserved seats to its representatives in the national and provincial assemblies is also still pending before the Supreme Court.
The move coincides with media speculations that a forward group made up of party dissidents in the National Assembly would be formed.
Leaders of the party, like Shahryar Afridi, Shandana Gulzar, Sher Afzal Marwat, and even former PTI spokesman Fawad Chaudhry, have been vocal in recent weeks about their complaints about the leadership, particularly over their failure to get Imran Khan released.
Speaking with Dawn on Thursday, Mr. Chaudhry declared that no one in the party leadership at the moment possessed the “political stature” or the capacity to inspire the people the way Imran Khan could. Furthermore, he claimed, the current leadership had been unable to team up with other opposition groups including the JUI-, PkMAP-, GDA-, or Jamaat-i-Islami.
The vacancy created by the imprisonment of leaders like Shah Mehmood Qureshi and Parvez Elahi, he said, has not been filled by the current party leadership. He also called them “traitors” for resisting the restoration of party old guard, including himself.
According to Mr. Chaudhry, several members of the party believed that if Imran Khan were released from prison, their political careers would come to an end.
