To avoid the legal danger of losing the chairmanship, Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) has been considering appointing Imran Khan as the party’s patron-in-chief.
Last month, Pakistan's Election Commission started proceedings to remove Khan from the chairman of Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) - the party he founded in 1996 - for allegedly filing incorrect statements of assets. However, Khan managed to get a stay order against the ECP after appearing before the Lahore High Court (LHC).
According to a report, party insiders claimed that with the new appointment, Khan would still have complete authority to oversee all party business.
Regarding the possibility of legal action being launched against Khan, sources said the party’s top brass had agreed to abandon all plans to do so. They also said there would be no need to amend the party constitution for the new position.
Meanwhile, Justice Jawad Hassan of the Lahore High Court put a stay on the ECP's action against Khan and proposed that a larger bench should decide the case.
The ECP is planning to take up the case on 25 January.
A cricketer-turned-politician, Khan has been in charge of the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (Pakistan Movement for Justice) since he founded it in 1996. In 2018, he became the 22nd Prime Minister of Pakistan and served the country until April 2022 when he was ousted in a vote of no-confidence brought in the National Assembly by then-opposition leader and now Prime Minister, Shehbaz Sharif.
He was also booked by the police on several charges, ranging from terrorism to rioting.
However, he has remained unfazed by these “harassments”, and accused the coalition government led by Sharif of abusing its constitutional authority by targeting his party, and blaming Sharif's government for the country's economic woes.