Pakistan's Imran Khan-backed party declined reserved parliament seats - ruling

By Asif Shahzad

ISLAMABAD (Reuters) - Pakistan's election commission on Monday ruled that a party aligned with candidates backed by former premier Imran Khan was not eligible for extra reserved seats in the legislature, another blow to the embattled group's governing prospects.

The decision represents a further setback to Khan, who is in jail following a string of convictions, despite his candidates winning the most seats overall in the Feb. 8 national election.

Khan's Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) party couldn't contest the election under its traditional electoral symbol, a cricket bat, which was denied on technical grounds.

PTI subsequently struck an alliance with another party, the Sunni Ittehad Council (SIC), in a bid to secure reserved seats.

"SIC is not entitled to claim for the quota for reserved seats for women and non-Muslims," the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) said in an order seen by Reuters.

The reserved seats will instead be distributed among other parties, it said.

This would bolster the parliamentary strength of the fragile coalition that is set to take office, led by former prime minister Nawaz Sharif's Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N), with support from the Pakistan People's Party (PPP).

"We will challenge the ECP decision in the superior court," one of Khan's lawyers, senator and barrister Ali Zafar, said in the upper house of the parliament after the ruling. "Such an undemocratic decision can't be tolerated," he said.

Under Pakistan's election rules, parties are allocated 70 reserved seats - 60 for women, 10 for non-Muslims - in proportion to the number of seats they win. This completes the National Assembly's total strength of 336 seats.

Khan-backed candidates had to run as independents after the election commission stripped his party its famous cricket bat symbol on ballot papers on grounds that it failed to conduct an intra-party election, a pre-requisite for any party to take part in polls.

They aligned with SIC after the vote and argued unsuccessfully that they were now entitled to a share of 23 of the reserved seats, Zafar said.

(Reporting by Asif Shahzad; Additional reporting by Gibran Peshimam and Ariba Shahid in Karachi; Writing by Charlotte Greenfield; Editing by YP Rajesh, Toby Chopra and Ros Russell)