<div><span style="font-size: 1rem;"><b>A Pakistan court today ruled that ex-prime minister Imran Khan’s party can contest elections using its cricket bat logo, lawyers said, winning the jailed opposition leader a rare reprieve before polls due in February.</b></span><br></div><div><br></div><div>In a nation where the adult literacy rate is just 58% according to World Bank data, election symbols are vital campaign tools for differentiating candidates on ballot papers.</div><div><br></div><div>But last week, the election commission stripped former cricket star Khan’s Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) party of the right to use its icon.</div><div><br></div><div>“The election commission’s ruling against PTI, in which its election symbol, the cricket bat, was unjustly revoked through an illegal order, has been suspended,” said PTI lawyer Syed Ali Zafar.</div><div><br></div><div>“It has been further directed that our symbol be reinstated,” Zafar told reporters outside a high court in the northwestern city of Peshawar, where PTI lodged an appeal.</div><div><br></div><div>Pakistan’s election commission revoked PTI’s right to use the symbol in polls set for Feb 8 over the party’s failure to hold internal elections in accordance with its constitution.</div><div><br></div><div>But PTI said the decision was the latest legal hurdle erected in a campaign to prevent its 71-year-old figurehead from contesting re-election.</div><div><br></div><div>Hugely popular Khan was ousted last year after falling out with Pakistan’s powerful military leaders, then waging an unprecedented campaign of defiance against them.</div><div><br></div><div>He is currently jailed and facing numerous graft cases and allegations he leaked classified state documents, a crime carrying a prison term of up to 14 years or even the death penalty.</div><div><br></div><div>After his arrest this year sparked unrest, PTI has been the subject of a widespread crackdown, with leading party figures either jailed or forced to leave the party.</div><div><br></div><div>PTI turned in nomination papers for Khan on Friday, but they may be challenged on the basis of the electoral commission having disqualified him from office over a graft conviction earlier this year. - AFP&nbsp;</div><div><br></div><div>bnbd24/fas</div>