QUETTA: Abdul Quddus Bizenjo of the Balochistan Awami Party (BAP) was elected unopposed as the 17th chief minister of Balochistan on Friday.
Bizenjo, a former chief minister of the resource-rich province, secured 39 votes during a special session of the assembly convened by Governor Zahoor Ahmad Agha for the sole purpose of the election of the new leader of the House and its speaker.
The BAP party has 24 seats in the House of 65 and is supported among others by the Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf (PTI), the second-largest party in Balochistan with seven lawmakers.
After the election, the governor administered the oath to the newly-elected chief minister at the Governor House.
Members of the House submitted the nomination papers of Bizenjo for the post of new provincial chief executive and Mir Jan Muhammad Khan Jamali for that of speaker, which fell vacant after the former had resigned Monday, on Thursday.
Bizenjo belongs to the Awaran district of Balochistan. He was elected on a Pakistan Muslim League-Quaid (PML-Q) ticket during general elections in 2013, and on a BAP seat in the 2018 elections.
He had served as chief minister of the province between January and May 2018.
The election was held after Jam Kamal Khan, also of the BAP party, resigned from the office of the chief minister Sunday night, hours ahead of a vote of no-confidence against him tabled by lawmakers from the opposition, as well as his own party, who had accused him of governing poorly, including doing little to counter soaring unemployment.
He was also criticised for approving a budget that according to his opponents, increased poverty in the province. However, Khan had rejected the charges as unfounded.
CENTRE SAYS WILL AGREE WITH BAP CHOICE:
Earlier on Monday, the federal government had decided to agree with any candidate the BAP party, who enjoys a majority in the House, chooses as the new chief executive of the province.
Defence Minister Pervez Khattak had said: “We will support the decision of the majority within the BAP. We will support the decision made by the parliamentary group of BAP.”
However, later that day, the Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf (PTI) parliamentary committee in the assembly had said it has decided to nominate lawmaker Yar Muhammad Rind as the candidate for the post.
It was mutually decided in a meeting that Rind would be nominated as the candidate for the post and Musakhel as the speaker of the House.
