Shehbaz Sharif expected to assume the Prime Ministership of Pakistan twice

GG News Bureau

Pakistan, 3^rd March. Shehbaz Sharif, the President of the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N), is set to assume the Prime Ministership for the second time as the newly formed eight-party alliance’s nominee, according to a report from Dawn in Pakistan. He will compete against Omar Ayub Khan, who has been nominated by the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI), in the election that is set to take place in the recently formed National Assembly on Sunday.

Following a review carried out in front of the leaders of both parties, Pakistan’s National Speaker Ayaz Sadiq deemed the two leaders’ nomination papers that they had submitted to the National Assembly Secretariat to be legitimate.

As per Dawn’s report, Omar Ayub Khan submitted four nomination papers with signatures from various proposers and seconders, while Shehbaz Sharif submitted eight nomination papers, according to the National Assembly Secretariat.

Shehbaz Sharif had drawn criticism from Omar Ayub Khan. He claimed that Shehbaz Sharif’s NA seat was “gifted” to him by manipulation of Form-47. He said that because the PML-N President had lost the constituency according to Form-45, he was not eligible to run for Prime Minister of Pakistan.

He stated in a post on X that Shehbaz Sharif “cannot be a candidate for prime minister because he was wrongly administered the oath of office as a member of Pakistan’s National Assembly.” Nevertheless, Omar Ayub Khan’s objection has been dismissed.

Following nearly one-sided elections on Friday to win the speaker and deputy speaker positions, the recently formed alliance appears poised to become Pakistan’s Prime minister. The PTI lawmakers, who were elected as independents before joining the Sunni Ittehad Council (SIC), are anticipated to carry on their protest in the house regarding the purported manipulation of the February 8 elections. In addition to the PML-N, Sharif has the support of 205 members according to the PPP, MQM-P, PML-Q, BAP, PML-Z, IPP, and the NP. Two MNAs-elect from PPP and MQM-P have not yet taken the oath of office. Sharif needs 169 votes in the 336-member house in order to take the lead. The opposition, supported by the PTI, is composed of 102 lawmakers. One person has not taken the oath among those. The BNP-Mengal and JUI-F are anticipated to abstain from the elections in the interim.

As of right now, 304 lawmakers have sworn in, but the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) has not yet announced the allocation of 23 seats reserved for minorities and women.

Sadiq, the leader of the PML-N, defeated Amir Dogar, the leader of the PTI, who received 91 votes in the house, to win the Speaker’s race on Friday with 199 votes.

PTI lawmakers objected, calling the secret ballot process for the speaker and deputy speaker elections “unconstitutional.” According to Dawn, the eight JUI-F members and BNP-M leader Akhtar Mengal, who abstained from the speaker and deputy speaker elections, have not disclosed their intentions to run in the Pakistan Prime Minister’s race.

Maulana did, however, indicate that he would not be present in the assembly for the PM’s poll when he traveled to Karachi on Saturday night. In accordance with Article 91 of the Constitution, the election will take place in the NA. “The National Assembly shall, to the exclusion of any other business, proceed to elect without debate one of its Muslim members to be the Prime Minister after the election of the speaker and the deputy speaker,” states Article 91(3).

As per Article 91(4) of the Constitution, the individual who secures the majority of votes from all members of the National Assembly will be declared the Prime Minister. In the event that no member obtains this majority in the first poll, a second poll will be conducted between the members who secured the highest numbers of votes in the first poll. The member who secures the majority of votes from all present and voting members will be declared the Prime Minister.

The Rules and Procedure for the Conduct of Business in the National Assembly 2007’s Second Schedule and Chapter IV both address the polling process.

According to the Second Schedule, “The speaker shall direct that the bells be rung for five minutes prior to the start of voting in order to allow members who are not in the chamber to be present.” All lobby entrances will be locked as soon as the bells stop ringing, and assembly employees stationed at each entrance will not permit anyone to enter or leave until the voting is over, according to Dawn.

The speaker will ask attendees who would like to cast ballots for the candidates to proceed to the designated lobbies through the entrance, where vote-tallying tellers will be stationed. Each member will, in turn, call out the division number assigned to them in accordance with the rules upon arriving at the tellers desk. The tellers will then simultaneously call out the member’s name and cross off the corresponding number on the division list, Dawn reported.

The member must wait to move until they hear their name called by the tellers in order to guarantee that their vote has been accurately recorded. The member may not reenter the chamber until bells have rung following the recording of his or her vote. The speaker will declare the vote to be over once he has confirmation that every participant who wished to vote has submitted a vote record. The secretary will then arrange for the division list to be gathered, count the votes that were cast, and deliver the results to the speaker.

After that, the speaker will give the order to ring the bells for two minutes so that the members can return to their chamber.