LAHORE: Punjab Governor Chaudhry Muhammad Sarwar has accepted the resignation of Chief Minister Usman Buzdar and convened a session of the provincial legislative assembly tomorrow at 11:00 am to elect his successor.
“In exercise of powers conferred under Article 109 of the Constitution, I summon the 40th session of provincial assembly for the election of the chief minister under Article 130,” the notification read.
With the resignation of Buzdar, his cabinet comprising members from the 17th legislative assembly stands dissolved until the election of a new chief minister.
Buzdar submitted his resignation to the prime minister on March 28 as the ruling Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf (PTI) party announced Punjab Assembly Speaker Chaudhry Pervaiz Elahi as its candidate for the post of the provincial chief executive to save his governments in Punjab and Islamabad.
In exchange for the chief ministership, Elahi’s Pakistan Muslim League-Quaid (PML-Q) agreed to put its weight behind embattled Imran Khan, who is facing a no-trust move against him by the unified opposition.
Buzdar submitted his resignation the same day the opposition in the Punjab Assembly moved a no-confidence motion to remove him from office.
122 lawmakers from the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) and seven from the Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) signed the motion before submitting it to the office of the speaker, said Rana Mashhood Ahmad Khan of the PML-N.
The assembly of the 371-seat House is dominated by the PTI whose government is supported by a coalition of 199 lawmakers. Of these, 184 belong to the PTI, 10 to PML-Q, one to a lesser-known Pakistan Rah-i-Haq Party (PRHP) and four independent MPs.
Whereas, the opposition, essentially the PML-N and PPP, have 172 seats combined with 165 of them belonging to the former.
Elahi needs the support of 182 lawmakers to enter the office.
After an abrupt exit from office three and a half years after Khan handpicked him to head the party government in the province, Buzdar, a former Nazim of Taunsa Tehsil, is likely to fade into oblivion.
During his time in office, he was praised for expanding health insurance coverage to the entire population of the province, ring-fencing development funds for south Punjab and undertaking certain long-overdue soft reforms in the health and school education sectors.
Joint opposition’s candidate yet to be finalised:
Meanwhile, the opposition in Punjab has yet to finalise its candidate for the post of the new chief minister.
PML-N MNA Javed Latif earlier told a private TV channel that Leader of the Opposition in the Punjab Assembly Hamza Shehbaz or disgruntled PTI MPA Aleem Khan might be the joint opposition’s candidate for the provincial chief minister.
However, another PML-N leader later told a news outlet: “As Hamza’s father Shehbaz Sharif is nominated for the prime minister’s office by the joint opposition, it does not want to give two top posts to ‘one party and one family’ in the post-Imran Khan scenario.”
