Khan’s deputy detained after positing challenge to any delay in election

Pakistani opposition leader Shah Mehmood Qureshi was detained yesterday, his Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf party said, just hours after he said it would challenge any delay to the country’s election in the courts.Party spokesman Zulfi Bukhari told Reuters the specific reason for the detention of Qureshi, twice Pakistan’s foreign minister, was not immediately clear. The caretaker information minister did not immediately respond to a request for comment.Bukhari condemned the arrest on the social media platform X, formerly known as Twitter, saying he was "arrested for doing a press conference and reaffirming PTI stance against all tyranny and pre poll rigging that is going on currently in Pakistan”.PTI party chairman Imran Khan is currently jailed for three years after being convicted on hotly disputed graft charges and is barred from contesting any election for five years — to prevent him from contesting an election all opinion polls suggest he would win, according to his party. He denies any wrongdoing. Khan won the last election in 2018 and became prime minister until he was ousted in a controversial no-confidence vote in 2022.The election is meant to be held within 90 days of parliament being dissolved last week, by November, but uncertainty looms over the date as the nation grapples with constitutional, political and economic crises.The outgoing government approved a new census in its final days, meaning new electoral boundaries must be drawn up by the Election Commission.The exercise of drawing fresh boundaries for hundreds of federal and provincial constituencies in a country of 241mn people may take six months or more, according to a former commission official.The election commission said on Thursday that new constituencies would be finalised by December 14, state television reported. After that, the commission will confirm an election date.Electoral experts have suggested that process could see the nationwide vote pushed back several months, possibly until February."It will be unconstitutional if the 90 days deadline is breached,” Qureshi, who is leading the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf, following Khan’s arrest, told the press conference.He said the party planned to contest any delay at the Supreme Court.