Fresh breeze: April brings with it several changes at K-P’s top posts

Province welcomes new governor, PHC chief justice, chief secretary, opposition leader.

PESHAWAR:

The month of April has stirred things up politically in Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa (K-P). The province is witnessing several high profile changes at various top posts.

Other than the recent reshuffle in the provincial cabinet wherein the health minister was changed and several others inducted, other changes include that of the governor, chief secretary, opposition leader, chief justice and possible resignation of senior minister Sirajul Haq.

April also rocked the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf’s (PTI) boat as several MPAs formed a pressure group owing to their ‘reservations’ over the cabinet shuffle, but the waters are calm now after PTI chief Imran Khan personally assured the disgruntled lawmakers.

However, some political analysts believe the storm may rear its head in the upcoming assembly session which has been requisitioned by the opposition for next week.

Moreover, Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz’s (PML-N) Sardar Mehtab Khan Abbasi will take oath as the governor on Monday after Shaukatullah Khan’s resignation. For the first time in the province’s history, a former chief minister will become the governor. The move led to criticism from some quarters, namely the Awami National Party, over the appointment of a non-traditional Pukhtun as the governor. Abbasi hails from the Hazara division.

Abbasi’s new role has left vacant the seat of the leader of opposition in the provincial assembly and it is believed it will be taken up by Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam-Fazl’s (JUI-F) parliamentary leader Maulana Lutfur Rehman. At present, PML-N has 16 seats following the disqualification of its lawmaker from Swat, Qaymos Khan, and the number will drop to 15 as Abbasi moves in to the picturesque Governor House. With 17 lawmakers in the assembly, JUI-F will thus take the opposition leader’s seat. In the beginning of this week, the federal government also announced the appointment of Amjad Ali Khan as the new chief secretary of K-P, replacing Shahzad Arbab.

News of disagreements between Arbab and Chief Minister Pervez Khattak had been doing the rounds for months and his replacement had been on the cards since February.

Additionally, senior provincial minister Sirajul Haq is likely to quit his post owing to his elevation as the Jamaat-e-Islami (JI) chief.

In 2006, Haq had quit his post of the province’s finance minister after he was elected the JI’s provincial chief during the Muttahida Majlis-e-Amal rule. In case of Haq’s resignation from the cabinet, Minister for Local Government and Rural Development Inayatullah Khan, who happens to be from JI, is likely to assume the post of senior minister in the provincial coalition.

Lastly, the Peshawar High Court welcomed Justice Mazhar Alam Miankhel as the new chief justice this past week.

Published in The Express Tribune, April 13^th, 2014.