ISLAMABAD:
The ruling coalition has secured a two-thirds majority in the Senate, with the PPP emerging as the largest party, followed by the PTI and the PML-N.
According to Express News, the PPP has secured 26 seats in the upper house; followed by the PTI, which has 16 senators of its own and the support of six independent lawmakers as well.
The PML-N now has 20 seats; BAP has four seats while the MQM and the ANP have three senators each. The JUI-F now also has a total of 7 senators. The PTI secured six of the 11 Senate seats from Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa (K-P) where Senate elections were held on Monday.
A day earlier, 25 opposition lawmakers elected on reserved seats in the K-P Assembly took their oathsnot in the provincial legislature, whose sitting was adjourned earlier in the day due to lack of a quorum, but in the Governor House.
With the induction of these new MPAs, the K-P Assembly finally became fully constituted almost one and a half years after the February 8, 2024 general elections. The oath-taking of these MPAs also paved the way for Senate elections for 11 seats that were held at the provincial assembly on Monday.
The K-P Assembly could not be fully constituted after the last year’s elections due to a controversy over reserved seats, on which the ruling party of the province, the PTI, laid claim. The PTI, however, lost the legal battle for reserved seats on June 28.
Later, the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) distributed the reserved seats for women and minority members among opposition partiesthe PML-N, the PPP, the JUI-F, the ANP and the PTI-P.
These MPAs including 21 women and 4 minority members were scheduled to take oath in a specially requisitioned assembly session on Sunday. However, right after the start of the session, a ruling party member, Shair Ali Afridi, pointed out the lack of a quorum.
Opposition members raised a commotion and staged a protest with the newly elected women and minority representatives surrounding the speaker’s dais and chanting slogans.
Later, the speaker ordered a headcount in the assembly.
Only 25 members were present in the house, prompting him to order bells to be rung for two minutes. However, the required number of members was not met. Consequently, the speaker adjourned the session until July 24, stating that the oath-taking ceremony would take place in the next session.
Earlier, the PTI parliamentary party held a meeting in which government members were instructed not to enter the hall and to boycott proceedings to prevent the oath-taking ceremony.
Afterward, K-P opposition leader Dr Ibadullah Khan, along with opposition members, submitted a petition in the Peshawar High Court (PHC), requesting the chief justice to nominate an appropriate person under Article 255(2) of the Constitution to administer the oath to the newly elected members.
The ECP also approached the PHC chief justice, requesting him to appoint a person to administer the oath to the new MPA. K-P Chief Justice Syed Muhammad Attique Shah later authorized K-P Governor Faisal Karim Kundi to take the oaths.
Later, on Sunday evening, a swearing-in ceremony was held at the Governor House in Peshawar where Governor Kundi, administered the oath to the 25 newly elected members under Article 65 and Article 255(2) of the Constitution and Rule 6 of the K-P Procedure and Conduct of Business Rules, 1988.
