KP CM Ali Amin Gandapur has been stripped of his position as PTI KP President. MNA Junaid Akbar was appointed in his place. The official reason given is that Mr Gandapur wants to concentrate on the affairs of the province, which are at sixes and sevens. Law and order, in particular, has taken a beating lately, with sectarian violence in Kurram a problem while terrorism continues to rock the province. However, Mr Gandapur and Mr Junaid Akbar have clashed before, most recently over the removal of Mr Shakeel Khan from the KP Cabinet. Mr Gandapur has also been the subject of criticism from Mr Sher Afzal Marwat, for his conduct of the campaign to get party founder Imran Khan released from jail. That criticism also became widespread within the PTI after his conduct at the November 26 D Chowk rally when he is said to have abandoned the party workers to their fate.
Mr Gandapur is supposed to have played a key role in talks with the government, and with the establishment. He was the only other person, apart from PTI Chairman Gohar Ali Khan, to meet COAS Gen Asim Munir in Peshawar, and is on the negotiation tem talking to the government. His removal might well have something to do with the talks with the government, which the PTI has moved away from, but with the Speaker still summoning a meeting on January 28, Mr Khan has summoned the negotiating team to meet him first.
Mr Gandapur served in the KP Cabinet in 2013-2018, before becoming a federal minister in 2018, and being appointed KP President after former CM Mahmood Khan left the party. He became CM on this basis. Mr Junaid Akbar has always been a national politician, serving as an MNA continuously from 2013, but this sign of Mr Khan’s favour came after he became the National Assembly’s Public Accounts Committee Chairman, ahead of Mr Gohar Khan as well as Opposition Leader Umar Ayub, who would normally have got the job. The PTI has thus embarked on the KP level with an experiment that has had mixed success in the past, of separating party and government offices. When the office-bearers have a history behind them, the chances of people within the party trying to play one off against the other rise exponentially, leading to problems. Can the PTI afford this in the province where they have been in office since 2013?
