Members of the Sindh Assembly through a secret ballot on Sunday elected PPP’s Owais Qadir Shah and Anthony Naveed as speaker and deputy speaker, respectively.
Out of a total of 147 votes cast on Sunday, Shah secured 111 votes while MQM-P’s Sofia Shah clinched 36. Meanwhile, Naveed also secured 111 votes while MQM-P’s Advocate Rashid Khan won 36.
The development comes a day after as many as 147 legislators-elect of the PPP and Muttahida Qaumi Movement-Pakistan (MQM-P) were sworn in as members of the 16th provincial assembly.
Outgoing Sindh Assembly speaker, Agha Siraj Durrani, administered the oath to 111 PPP members and 36 from the MQM-P on Saturday. Notably absent were nine PTI-backed independent candidates, three from the Grand Democratic Alliance (GDA) and two from Jamaat-i-Islami, all protesting the election outcome.
Today’s session, which was scheduled to begin at 11am, began with a delay of 18 minutes with outgoing speaker Durrani in the chair. Following the recitation of the Holy Quran, the nine PTI-backed MPAs-elect — who had not taken their oath on Saturday — were sworn in.
Jamaat-i-Islami (JI) leader Muhammad Farooq was also sworn in alongside the PTI-backed independents. Meanwhile, JI Karachi chief Haafiz Naeemur Rehman did not attend today’s session.
As the polling process for electing the speaker commenced, PTI-backed MPAs chanted slogans against alleged poll rigging and refused to participate in the voting. PTI-backed Bilal Khan Jatoi called the process a “fraudulent election”.
