Lahore (LTN NEWS): Lawmakers have started to show up at the Punjab Assembly, where they will soon vote on a new speaker.
The last speaker, Chaudhry Parvez Elahi, was sworn in as the new chief minister, so the job became open.
On Thursday, the House voted to ask for the assembly rules that allow the governor to call a session for the contest to be suspended. They also voted to hold a vote of no-confidence against the Deputy Speaker, Sardar Dost Mohammad Mazari.
Sibtain Khan, a PTI lawmaker from Mianwali, has been chosen by the ruling coalition of PTI and PML-Q to be the next speaker. Saiful Malook Khokhar is the joint candidate of the opposition parties PML-N and PPP.
After the new assembly secretary, Inayatullah Lak looked over their papers, both candidates were allowed to run. His predecessor, Mohammad Khan Bhatti, was moved and put in charge of the chief minister’s office. This was a first, as no assembly service officer has ever been transferred to a general service job.
Earlier, the assembly held its longest session with Wasim Badozai in charge. Former law minister Raja Basharat put forward a resolution to suspend the rules of business in order to hold elections for the position of the speaker and a vote of no confidence against Deputy Speaker Mazari on Friday afternoon (today). Most people voted for the motion to be passed.
After Badozai explained how the new speaker would be chosen, the meeting was put off until today.
This week, the Supreme Court overturned the deputy speaker’s decision on the Punjab chief minister’s re-election, which had given Hamza Shehbaz the win in the long-running battle for the province’s top job.
During the election, the deputy speaker decided not to count the votes of 10 PML-Q lawmakers who voted for Elahi. He did this because party President Chaudhry Shujaat Hussain had told them to vote for Hamza instead in a letter. That decision tipped the scales in Hamza’s favor, but the SC’s decision on Tuesday took away that advantage.
In the end, Elahi was sworn in at 2 a.m. on Wednesday.
The PTI-PML-Q coalition then decided to move a “no-confidence” resolution against Mazari, who was elected to office as the PTI candidate.
