Caretaker set-up: PPP and MQM yet to shortlist name for interim CM

Apart from PPP and MQM, all opposition parties nominate candidates and send names to opposition leader.

KARACHI:

Apart from the Pakistan Peoples Party and the Muttahida Qaumi Movement, all opposition parties have nominated their candidates for the caretaker chief minister and sent the names to opposition leader Syed Sardar Ahmed.

The scheduled meeting of the opposition parties turned out to be an exercise in futility as only MQM attended it and the remaining parties chose to send their nominees to the opposition leader via the telephone.

According to Jam Madad Ali of the Pakistan Muslim League-Functional, they have nominated former Sindh Assembly speaker and Pakistan’s envoy to the UN, Hussain Abdullah Haroon, former Sindh chief secretary Aslam Sanjrani, and former federal minister Khair Muhammad Junejo. Meanwhile, PML-Q (Likeminded) nominees include Justice Nasir Aslam Zahid, former health secretary Dr Azeem Almani, and retired justice Muhammad Sadiq Leghari. Ahmed said his party’s Rabita committee will finalise their nominees by today. Information Minister Sharjeel Memon assured that a neutral person would be appointed.

Published in The Express Tribune, March 14^th, 2013.