Imran Khan was disqualified by Pakistan’s election commission on Friday for failing to disclose gifts he received while serving as prime minister of the nation.
Khan was declared to have been removed from office by a five-member panel of the Election Commission of Pakistan, led by Chief Election Commissioner Sikandar Sultan Raja.
The decision states that Khan should be prosecuted for hiding the specifics of gifts he received from various nations during his more than three-year tenure as prime minister.
According to Article 63 (p) of the Constitution, which states that Khan is “for the time being disqualified from being elected or chosen as a member of the Majlis-e-Shoora (Parliament) or of a Provincial Assembly under any law for the time being in force,” the commission disqualified Khan.
Khan will run in the general election of 2023, according to Fawad Chaudhry, a close aide and former minister of information.
Since being removed from office in a no-confidence vote in the parliament in April, Khan has organised a number of anti-government protests and has called for early elections, which are currently scheduled for late next year.
He won six of the seven National Assembly seats he was running for nationwide in a by-election earlier this week.
The election commission will be the target of a nationwide strike called by his party, Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI), which has rejected the decision.
Asad Umar, a PTI leader and former minister in Khan’s cabinet, said that the Election Commission “has no authority to disqualify any member of parliament; the commission has violated the law.”