Punjab set to get first woman CM as 321 MPAs take oath

LAHORE/ KARACHI/ PESHAWAR: Friday was another important day in parliamentary history of the country as newly-elected members of the provincial assembly (MPAs) of the Punjab took oath, and the PPP chairman nominated the Sindh Assembly members for the offices of chief minister, speaker and deputy speaker.

According to a decision of the coalition partners, mainly comprising the PMLN and the PPP, Maryam Nawaz would lead Punjab as the chief minister, and Syed Murad Ali Shah Sindh after formation of the provincial assemblies. As many as 321 MPAs including 215 belonging to the PMLN-led coalition, and 98 from the Sunni Ittehad Council (SIC) took oath of their office on Friday.

Maryam Nawaz, the PMLN senior leader and nominated chief minister of Punjab became the fourth member of the Sharif family and the first woman MPA of the family to take oath in the Punjab Assembly. Outgoing PA Speaker Sibtain Khan administered oath to the newly-elected MPAs after a noisy start to the session. The house had to face adjournment for nearly two hours due to disorder in the visitors’ gallery and protest by the opposition. The proceedings were resumed after Friday prayers and the newly-elected MPAs took the oath. Rana Aftab Ahmad, a Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI), stalwart was the first person to speak on a point of order in the 12th PA and he raised objection over oath taking in the absence of the MPAs on reserved seats of the Sunni Ittehad Council, the party which the PTI-backed independents had joined to get the quota of reserved seats.

The SIC is likely to get 26 reserved seats and the issue is still pending with the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP). Speaker Sibtain Khan asked Rana Aftab to remain calm and let the ECP decide over it. At a time when Rana Aftab was arguing, the PMLN MPAs also started speaking, and sloganeering started from visitors’ gallery. The SIC MPAs including Rana Aftab and Ejaz Shafi went to the speaker’s dais and recorded protest for not allowing the PTI supporters to enter the visitors box. The speaker told the House about the objection, raised by the opposition MPAs, and assured them that names of their guests mentioned in the list, provided by them, would be allowed. The speaker sought time from the members and adjourned the house for some time. After the proceedings started again, the speaker administered the oath to the MPAs.

Rana Aftab Ahmad also told the Punjab Assembly that the PTI-backed elected member Mian Aslam Iqbal, who had been nominated for the Punjab chief minister’s slot by party founder Imran Khan, had been arrested.

The outgoing speaker, Sibtain Khan, sought a report and told the house that he would issue production orders for the arrested MPA.

The PMLN has nominated Malik Muhammad Ahmad Khan as the candidate for Speaker whereas Zaheer Iqbal Channar has been pitched as the candidate for the slot of Deputy Speaker PA. The Sunni Ittehad Council has fielded Mumtaz Bachar and Moeen Riaz Qureshi for the slots of Speaker and Deputy Speaker respectively. Polling for Speaker and Deputy Speaker PA will take place today.

SIC MNA Amir Dogar told media that PTI had won around 170 seats without the symbol of Bat, adding that otherwise, it would have won 80 more seats. He announced the SIC panel for Speaker and Deputy Speaker elections.

Meanwhile, IPP President Abdul Aleem Khan and PMLQ leader Chaudhry Shafay Hussein held a meeting with PMLN President Shehbaz Sharif. The meeting discussed in detail the share of allies in the coalition. Both IPP and PMLQ are likely to get share in ministries.

Earlier, at the arrival of Maryam Nawaz in the house, the PMLN MPAs and supporters sitting in the galleries chanted vociferous slogans to welcome her. She was given the seat in the front row, which is considered the seat of the leader of the house. Next to her in the seating arrangement was Marriyum Aurangzeb, who has been sent to the Punjab Assembly by her party this time. Former speaker PA Rana Muhammad Iqbal Khan, Mujtaba Shujaur Rehman and MPA from Sargodha Suhaib Bherat were also given seats in the front row with Maryam Nawaz. Most of the PMLN MPAs carried portraits of party supremo Nawaz Sharif and they kept chanting slogans of “Wazir-e-Azam’ Nawaz Sharif.

In a brief interaction with Geo TV, before entering the PA, Maryam expressed the hope that an era of prosperity would start for Punjab now. She also chaired a meeting of the party MPAs in which senior leaders including senators Ishaq Dar and Azam Nazir Tarar also participated.

The election for the offices of PA speaker and deputy speaker will take place on Saturday (today). Atta Tarar, the PMLN leader, told the media outside the Punjab Assembly that the party strength was now touching 200.

Meanwhile, PPP Chairman Bilawal-Bhutto Zardari nominated Murad Ali Shah as the Sindh chief minister, Awais Qadir Shah as speaker and Anthony Naveed as the deputy speaker of the Sindh Assembly for the next five-year term of the assemblies. He made the announcement on Friday while chairing a meeting of the PPP parliamentary party in Sindh here at Bilawal House. The inaugural session of the Sindh Assembly would be held on Saturday (today) for oath-taking by newly-elected MPAs.

In the coming days, elections will be held in the house to elect a new speaker, deputy speaker, and leader of the house for the next five years. Murad Ali Shah has been nominated for the post of provincial chief executive for the third time.

The PPP chairman told the newly-elected MPAs that history had placed colossal responsibilities on their shoulders. “Whether we are in power or in opposition, we should shun old ways of doing politics,” advised Bilawal. He said the PPP would establish a working relationship with all opposition parties in Sindh whether they were in the house or outside the assembly as all their valid complaints would be resolved.

He mentioned that PPP’s candidates had courageously fought against all conspiracies in the recent general election that were quite challenging.

He said the people of Sindh had once more pinned their hopes on the People’s Party and the incoming Sindh government should achieve new milestones in public service by surpassing its past records. “We will not just compete with other provincial governments but our performance will also be judged against that of the federal government,” he said.

He said the PPP had made history by nominating Anthony Naveed for the position of Sindh Assembly’s deputy speaker. He said that Awais Qadir, being the new young speaker of the assembly, would run the house in a better manner like his predecessor Agha Siraj Durrani.

He said that all political parties had forgotten the flood victims except the PPP. “We didn’t demand any ministry in the federal cabinet as all we want is that the federal government should play its due role in rehabilitation of the flood victims in Sindh and Balochistan,” said the PPP chairman. He said the PPP next government would construct houses for homeless flood victims with land ownership rights to be given to women of such flood-affected families.

He said the incoming Sindh government would reconstruct school buildings in the flood-hit areas where up to 50 per cent of the educational infrastructure had been damaged due to the calamity.

He asked the newly nominated Sindh CM to further expand the scope of welfare schemes of the Sindh Rural Support Organisation for poverty alleviation in the province.

He expressed resolve that the new Sindh government would complete all pending development projects from Karachi to Kashmore including K-IV bulk water supply scheme.

He announced establishment of a working relationship with Muttahida Qaumi Movement Pakistan, Sunni Ittehad Council, Grand Democratic Alliance, Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam-Fazl, nationalist parties, and other political forces in the country.

Separately, Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa (KP) Caretaker Chief Minister Justice (retd) Arshad Hussain Shah Friday dispatched a summary to Governor Ghulam Ali to convene the maiden session of the provincial assembly.

Information Minister Barrister Mian Feroze Jamal Shah Kakakhel told The News the chief minister had sent the summary to the governor for calling the assembly into session, but said it was the prerogative of the governor to set any date for the session.

“The caretaker chief minister has only sent a summary and didn’t mention any particular date as it was the prerogative of the governor to fix the date,” Kakakhel argued.

It was not clear whether the governor would be able to sign the summary quickly and call the assembly session as he was reportedly on a 4-day leave and was stated to be out of the province.

Of 113 MPAs, the PTI with 99 MPAs is the single largest political party in the KP Assembly and could easily form its own government.

The party leadership is, however, constantly trying to seek the help of another political party in the assembly to claim the reserved seats.

Meanwhile, senior PTI members told The News that a list had been sent to the incarcerated party chief Imran Khan for final approval for inclusion in the cabinet.

CM-designate Ali Amin Gandapur has reportedly sought suggestions from some of the party senior leaders in the province for the cabinet formation, but he didn’t share names of the proposed cabinet members with them.

“Ali Amin has spoken to different PTI leaders in KP during the last few days and almost all of them have given him names of their close associates to be inducted into the cabinet. However, Ali Amin didn’t share with them names of the party MPAs that he had sent to Imran Khan,” a senior PTI leader told The News in Peshawar.

Pleading anonymity, he said none of the PTI leaders had any access to Imran Khan, except for lawyers.

“Recently, several PTI senior leaders, including Asad Qaiser, Omar Ayub Khan, Atif Khan, and Shahram Tarakai went to the Adiala Jail with court permission to meet Imran Khan, but they were not allowed to meet him. It was very important for these party leaders to have met him and give him their input in the cabinet formation,” said the PTI leader.

The PTI founding chairman has so far named Ali Amin Gandapur as the KP chief minister and Aqibullah Khan for provincial assembly speaker slots.