Raja Pervez Ashraf elected NA Speaker unopposed

PTI stays away from election; Assembly secretary convenes session at noon today

ISLAMABAD:

Senior Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) lawmaker Raja Pervez Ashraf was elected Speaker of the National Assembly unopposed, after no candidate filed nominations on behalf of the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) on Friday.

The election for the post of the speaker was triggered by the resignation of previous speaker Asad Qaiser of the PTI. Qaiser, who was already facing no-confidence motion, announced his resignation on the floor of the house just before the midnight of April 9.

Raja Pervez Ashraf is a senior parliamentarian, who had previously served as the prime minister of Pakistan for a year after his predecessor Syed Yousuf Raza Gilani of the PPP was disqualified by the Supreme Court in 2012-13.

Read more: NA speaker, his deputy resign before no-trust vote

On Friday Ashraf was the only candidate to file the nomination for the speakership. His name was proposed by Syed Khursheed Shah and seconded by Syed Naveed Qamar. Till the stipulated time, no other candidate filed the nomination with the National Assembly secretary.

After the scrutiny Ashraf’s nomination paper was found in order and he was declared elected speaker of the National Assembly. Later the secretary convened a meeting of the National Assembly at Parliament House on Saturday noon.

It is expected the no-confidence motion against Deputy Speaker Qasim Suri will be tabled in the house on Saturday. Earlier, the National Assembly was to meet on Saturday to elect the new speaker. However, Suri had adjourned the session till April 22.

Court challenge

The ruling of Suri had already been challenged in the Islamabad High Court (IHC). On Friday, a larger bench, led by Chief Justice Athar Minallah and including Justice Amir Farooq and Justice Babar Sattar, took up the petition, filed by Murtaza Javed Abbasi of the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N).

During the hearing, Mansoor Awan, the lawyer for the petitioner, informed the bench that the deputy speaker was currently exercising the power of the speaker. He added that a National Assembly session was scheduled for April 16 but it had been adjourned till 22, without any reason.

To a court query, what could be the reason for adjourning the session, Awan said that the move could only mean to prolong the matter by using delaying tactics. He also said that the matter was related to the parliamentary proceedings, but the Supreme Court had suspended a ruling of the deputy speaker.

Chief Justice Minallah told the petitioner to let the house convene on April 22. However, Awan asked what if the session was not convened on that date. However, the court responded that it was just an assumption and the court did not have any reason to doubt that the session would not be convened.

Awan requested the court to issue notices to the respondents. On his request, the bench issued notices to the Federation, the National Assembly secretary and the deputy speaker of National Assembly.