Vehicles ride past the National Assembly building as the opening session of parliament commences, in Islamabad, Pakistan, Thursday, Feb. 29, 2024. Sardar Ayaz Sadiq, a senior leader from the party headed by former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, was on March 1 elected as the Speaker of the newly-formed National Assembly.
| Photo Credit: AP
Sardar Ayaz Sadiq, a senior leader from the party headed by former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, was on March 1 elected as the Speaker of the newly-formed National Assembly.
PML-N’s Mr. Sadiq secured 199 votes out of a total of 291 votes cast, Dawn.com reported.
The Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) candidate beat his rival Amir Dogar, who got only 91 votes amid commotion caused by the Sunni Ittehad Council (SIC) members. Mr. Dogar was backed by jailed former Prime Minister Imran Khan’s Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) party.
After the counting of votes was complete, outgoing Speaker Raja Pervaiz Ashraf said that a total of 291 votes were cast, out of which one was “invalid” and the rest declared “valid,” the report said.
Mr. Khan and PTI have alleged massive rigging in the February 8 polls and accused PML-N and its alliance partners, including Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) of stealing his party’s mandate.
Given the party position in the Assembly, it was sure that the PML-N-backed candidate would win as the Nawaz Sharif-headed party had tied up with the PPP and other four smaller parties to keep Mr. Khan’s PTI out of power.
Independent candidates — a majority backed by Mr. Khan’s PTI — won 93 National Assembly seats. The PML-N won 75 seats, the PPP came third with 54 seats while the Muttahida Qaumi Movement Pakistan (MQM-P) had won 17 seats.
Meanwhile, according to the schedule announced on Thursday by the National Assembly Secretariat, the election for the head of the government, i.e. the Prime Minister, would be held on Sunday. The PMN-L and PPP alliance has nominated former Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif as their nominee.
The election for the new President will take place on March 9. PPP leader and former Pakistan president Asif Ali Zardari is expected to be re-elected to the post after a gap of nearly 11 years.
