Pakistan: Imran Khan picks Omar Ayub as PM nominee
Imran Khan, the former cricketer-turned-politician currently serving a jail sentence, has designated a fugitive as his choice for Pakistan’s next prime minister.
Omar Ayub Khan is slated to compete against the nominee of Imran Khan’s political adversaries. Despite facing criminal charges and being wanted by the police, Mr. Ayub’s candidacy remains valid.
Despite Imran Khan’s independent candidates unexpectedly securing the majority of seats in the recent election, they lack sufficient numbers to establish a government.
Presently, the primary contenders seem poised to assume power, following the formation of a coalition between Nawaz Sharif’s Pakistan Muslim League-N (PML-N) and Bilawal Bhutto Zardari’s Pakistan People’s Party (PPP).
Following a meeting with the incarcerated former premier, Asad Qaiser, a senior leader of Imran Khan’s Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaaf (PTI) party, declared Mr. Ayub as their nominee for prime minister.
The forthcoming prime minister will be elected by members of Pakistan’s National Assembly, with 56-year-old Mr. Ayub challenging the PML-N’s Shehbaz Sharif, Nawaz Sharif’s brother.
Mr. Ayub is evading criminal charges related to riots triggered by Imran Khan’s arrest in May last year, but this does not preclude his candidacy for the PM position.
Should he be elected, Mr. Ayub has asserted that his chief priority will be the release of political detainees. He secured victory last week as an independent candidate supported by PTI.
He is the grandson of Mohamed Ayub Khan, a former military dictator and Pakistan’s president from 1958 to 1969.
With the backing of the PPP, Mr. Sharif proposed his brother Shehbaz as the PML-N’s candidate for PM.
The election for Pakistan’s next prime minister will occur subsequent to the swearing-in of all newly elected National Assembly members and the selection of the speaker and deputy speaker.
Independent candidates, the majority of whom are affiliated with Khan’s PTI, clinched 93 out of the 265 contested National Assembly seats in last Thursday’s election. PML-N secured 75 seats, while PPP came third with 54 seats.
PTI contends that its allies should have secured more votes and seats, alleging electoral fraud and interference, which electoral officials have refuted.
Earlier this week, a politician from the Jamaat-e-Islami party relinquished his seat, alleging that the vote was rigged in his favor.
“We will not allow our mandate to be stolen,” Mr Ayub said in a post on X, formerly Twitter.
“PTI as a party will work for strengthening democratic institutions in Pakistan so that the country’s economy can be put on a path of positive trajectory and we can initiate our reforms programme to benefit the people of Pakistan,” he said.
Mr Ayub was first elected into the nation’s National Assembly in 2002 as a candidate of the Pakistan Muslim League-Q, a breakaway party from the PML-N.
He joined PML-N in 2012, and then moved again in 2018 to join PTI. He was a minister in Khan’s cabinet from 2018 until the ex-PM’s ouster in April 2022. He was appointed PTI’s secretary-general since 27 May 2003, shortly after Khan’s arrest.
