And it begins...: Mark the date: NA session on June 1

PML-N’s speaker candidate likely to be from Sindh or Balochistan; PTI will field its own candidates.

ISLAMABAD:

On the first of June, the National Assembly will welcome a very different set of MNAs as the first session after the elections is held.

The caretaker prime minister, Mir Hazar Khoso, has already sent a summary to the president recommending the summoning of the session.

The summary, prepared by the ministry of law and parliamentary affairs, was sent to the Prime Minister’s Secretariat, and then forwarded to the Presidency.

The first session will be chaired by outgoing speaker Dr Fehmida Mirza, who will administer the oath to the new lawmakers, according to parliamentary sources.

On June 2, nomination papers for the new speaker and deputy speaker will be submitted in the speaker’s chamber, while elections for the two slots will be held on June 3 with the outgoing speaker swearing in her successor.

The day after that, nomination papers for the leader of the house will be submitted, while elections for the next prime minister of the country will be held on June 5.



The Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz emerged as the largest political party in Parliament with 145 directly elected members and has nominated its party chief Nawaz Sharif as prime minister. This would be his third term as premier of Pakistan – a new record in the country’s parliamentary history.

The second highest numerical strength rests with the Pakistan Peoples’ Party (PPP), with 32 members, followed closely by Imran Khan’s Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) with 28 members.

The PTI has nominated its senior leader Javed Hashmi as its candidate for the prime minister office, which means that the former PML-N stalwart will be facing off against his former leader Nawaz Sharif. The PPP, on the other hand, is yet to decide who to name as its candidate, while there is also a possibility that the party will vote for Nawaz as a goodwill gesture.

The newly-emerged PTI is also determined to field its own candidates for speaker and deputy speaker, given that it is extremely averse to being labelled a ‘friendly opposition’.

Sources in the PML-N said that the party leadership wants to give the speaker’s office to a member from either Sindh or Balochistan, but a name is yet to be finalised. The office of the deputy speaker, meanwhile, is likely to be given either to a member from Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa or the PML-N’s own Dr Tariq Fazal Chaudhry from Islamabad Capital Territory.

Published in The Express Tribune, May 28^th, 2013.