PTI’s Amjad Zaidi and Advocate Nazir elected G-B speaker, deputy

Khalid Khurshid emerged on Thursday as the strong candidate for the post of chief minister of Gilgit-Baltistan, as the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI)’s Syed Amjad Zaidi and Advocate Nazir Ahmed comfortably won the election of speaker and deputy speaker, respectively.

According to sources, PTI’s central and regional leadership has agreed to the name of Barrister Khalid Khurshid for the chief ministership of the region. They added that Prime Minister Imran Khan would announce the PTI nominee.

In Gilgit, Zaidi secured 18 votes in the 33-strong house in the election for speaker, while Advocate Nazir Ahmed was elected Deputy Speaker with 22 votes. Opposition’s candidate Ghulam Mohammad got 8 votes for the post of speaker while Rehmat Khaliq got 9 votes for the post of deputy speaker.

The nomination papers for Gilgit-Baltistan chief minister would be filed on Friday (today), while voting will take place in the legislative assembly on Saturday (tomorrow). According to the sources, the new chief minister would take oath of office next week.

The sources said that three names were sent to the prime minister for the post of chief minister, including Col (retd) Obaidullah Baig, Fatehullah Khan and Barrister Khalid Khurshid. Later, the names were shortlisted to Fatehullah Khan and Barrister Khalid Khurshid.

On Thursday, the PTI's central and local leadership agreed to the name of Khurshid, who will be the PTI candidate in the election of the chief minister. Given the two-thirds majority of the party, he is expected to win the election easily.

Any candidate for the chief ministership required support of at least 17 members. The PTI has 22 members in the 33-member Gilgit-Baltistan Assembly. The strength of the opposition is 9, as one member of Majlis-e-Wahdat Muslimeen is a PTI ally. There is also one independent member.

Also Pakistan Peoples Party’s (PPP) Amjad Hussain has won on 2 seats and had to vacate one seat before taking oath as the lawmaker. Thus, at present the opposition coalition is reduced to 8. Independent lawmaker Nawaz Naji has not yet made clear which side he would vote in the chief minister’s election.