Election for new PM to be held today

ISLAMABAD: Election for the office of new prime minister will be held today (Tuesday) at the National Assembly.

The PML-N leadership and its parliamentary party had nominated Shahid Khaqan Abbasi as an interim Leader of the House in the National Assembly and Shahbaz Sharif as the permanent prime minister who would succeed Abbasi during the second half of the next month in case he wins the by-poll on NA-120 constituency seat vacated by Nawaz Sharif.

NA Speaker Sardar Ayaz Sadiq on Monday accepted nomination papers of Shahid Khaqan Abbasi and five other candidates from the opposition parties that failed to agree on a consensus candidate.

The opposition parliamentarians who filed their nomination papers which were accepted by the speaker include Leader of the Opposition Syed Khursheed Shah and Syed Naveed Qamar of Pakistan People’s Party (PPP), Sheikh Rashid Ahmad who is joint candidate of Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) and Awami Muslim League, Sahibzada Tariqullah from Jamaat-e-Islami (JI) and Kishwar Zahra from Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM).

The nomination papers could be withdrawn at any time before start of the process of election. Election for the slot of the prime minister would just be a formality as the ruling PML-N alone enjoys simple majority in the House and is way ahead in the numbers game. The PML-N candidate would also get unconditional support from the JUI-F as announced by Maulana Fazlur Rehman following party’s meeting on Monday, while the MQM has also announced to support PML-N’s candidate.

The speaker while examining nomination papers of Shahid Khaqan Abbasi rejected objections of Sheikh Rashid on the papers.  Earlier, the opposition failed to create consensus on joint candidate for the election of the prime minister and decided to hold another meeting today (Tuesday) prior to the session of the National Assembly.

In a meeting at the opposition leader’s chamber at the Parliament House on Monday, the opposition divided on the nomination of Sheikh Rashid. Chances of consensus are grim as the PPP chairman Bilawal Bhutto Zardari has directed the PPP not to support Sheikh Rashid.

After no consensus in the opposition meeting, the PTI vice chairman Shah Mehmood Qureshi and Sheikh Rashid proceeded to the National Assembly Secretariat to submit Sheikh Rashid’s nomination papers. 

Talking to media persons after submission of the nomination papers of Sheikh Rashid, Shah Mehmood Qureshi said the opposition should give a chance to Sheikh Rashid -- one of the petitioners in the landmark Panama Papers case. Shah Mehmood claimed that the other opposition parties have asked for more time to ponder over the option of rallying behind Sheikh Rashid.