ISLAMABAD — Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf’s parliamentary party announced on Tuesday that it would support the proposed 28th Constitutional Amendment only on the strict condition that party founder Imran Khan be released immediately, according to the DNA news agency. The decision was taken at a high-level meeting of the parliamentary party.
The meeting was called to consider the proposed constitutional changes and the party’s strategic political position. According to the agency’s report, senior leaders reiterated that any political understanding or constitutional engagement with the government would remain conditional on Khan’s release and the withdrawal of legal proceedings against the party. The announcement turns a general demand into an explicit price for PTI votes, because like all constitutional amendments in Pakistan, the measure will require a two-thirds majority in parliament — arithmetic that can make a major opposition bloc decisive.
Tuesday’s meeting was the same forum Zark News reported on a day earlier, when PTI leaders publicly disagreed about how far decision-making authority had actually shifted to the parliamentary party. Barrister Ali Zafar had said powers were transferred to the parliamentary party, while Chairman Barrister Gohar Ali Khan and Information Secretary Sheikh Waqas Akram denied a full transfer, saying most decision-making authority remained with the core and political committees. The amendment condition is the first publicly announced decision of the meeting, and it directly links the party’s parliamentary strength to its imprisoned founder.
Khan has been imprisoned in Adiala Jail for more than three years, and PTI has made access to him and his release central to its politics. The party is also fighting the Oct. 11 emergency and governor’s rule in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, which ended PTI’s provincial government. Gohar has challenged the emergency in the Peshawar High Court, calling it a grave political mistake. PTI says several of its elected members have been missing for almost two weeks and is demanding their recovery and access to lawyers, although officials have not confirmed those claims in the reports summarised here. The federal government has defended the emergency on security grounds, and Information Minister Attaullah Tarar has said there will be no talks with PTI outside parliament or without Imran Khan — a condition PTI leaders have rejected.
As of Wednesday morning, no government response to the condition had been reported, and the text and timetable of the proposed 28th Amendment had not, according to the reports summarised here, been formally placed before parliament. Constitutional amendments in Pakistan have repeatedly become bargaining between governments short of two-thirds majorities and opposition blocs holding the balance, and PTI’s announcement keeps its votes available — but at the highest price.
What happens next depends on whether the government is willing to open the path to amendment that it has publicly ruled out — negotiations including Imran Khan — or proceeds without PTI and tests its numbers with smaller parties. Either way, the party’s condition has ensured that the amendment debate and the Khan question are now formally linked in parliament. Read the DNA report at centreline.com.pk.
