PTI to challenge NAB chief’s appointment

Cheema says PTI has already written to NA speaker to appoint Shah Mehmood Qureshi as opposition leader

LAHORE:

Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) leader and former Punjab governor Omar Sarfaraz Cheema on Saturday announced the party’s plan to challenge the appointment of the new National Accountability Bureau (NAB) chairman before the court.

The federal government appointed Lt Gen (retd) Nazir Ahmad Butt as the new NAB chairman for a period of three years after Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif and Leader of the Opposition in the National Assembly Raja Riaz reached a consensus on the name of the retired general.

The government chose the new accountability czar on the heels of the prime minister’s meetings with Chief of Army Staff (COAS), General Syed Asim Munir, Pakistan Peoples Party Parliamentarians (PPPP) President Asif Ali Zardari and Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam-Fazl (JUI-F) chief Maulana Fazlur Rehman, among others.

Cheema told The Express Tribune that the PTI had already written to the National Assembly speaker earlier in February, requesting the appointment of PTI MNA Shah Mehmood Qureshi as the opposition leader. However, instead of entertaining the request, the speaker allowed PTI dissident Raja Riaz to continue as the opposition leader, despite no longer having majority support from the opposition benches.

They used their own pawn despite knowing fully well that Riaz could no longer function as the opposition leader after courts overturned the NA speaker’s decision of accepting the PTI resignations allowing the party lawmakers to return to the assembly in numbers much greater than those supporting Riaz.

Cheema argued that with this in mind, the appointment of the new NAB chairman was not legitimate, and therefore the party had made the decision to challenge the appointment in court.

The former governor also highlighted Riaz's confession of being an aspirant for a ticket from the ruling Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) in the upcoming elections.

Opposition leader Riaz and around two dozen PTI dissidents were instrumental in dislodging their own party's government last year. Their role in these events created a rift within the party, with some PTI members accusing them of being opportunists and betraying the party principles.