LAHORE: Dost Muhammad Mazari, the deputy speaker of the Punjab Assembly, has declared Hamza Shehbaz the winner of the race for chief minister. Shehbaz received 178 votes, while Chaudhry Pervez Elahi received 186.
Lahore Punjab Assembly:
Mazari disregarded 10 PML-Q votes by citing a letter from the party’s leader, Chaudhry Shujaat Hussain, which forbade MPAs from supporting the PTI candidate.
Political scheming at the last minute caused a three-hour delay in the key session.
According to reports, all 10 PML-Q members of the Punjab Assembly disobeyed Chaudhry Shujaat’s orders and supported Pervaiz Elahi in the race for chief minister. The votes cast by the PML-Q MPs were not acknowledged by Deputy Speaker Dost Mazari.
Hamza Shehbaz received 179 ballots. The PML-Q earned 10 votes, while PTI received 176, according to the deputy speaker who also announced the results of the contest for the position of chief executive.
The deputy speaker read from the letter that Chaudhry Shujaat had sent and stated, “As party president of the PML-Q, I have instructed my provincial members to vote for Hamza Shehbaz.”
The deputy speaker said that he had disregarded the votes of PML-Q legislators in accordance with the Supreme Court’s decision regarding Article 63-A’s defection clause.
Raja Basharat, the leader of the PTI, spoke on the floor of the house and disputed the deputy speaker’s decision, arguing that in his capacity as caretaker of the chamber, he could not disallow the legislators’ votes.
“Chaudhary Shujaat is not permitted to stop members from casting their votes… He said that he lacked the power to prevent any member.
The deputy speaker, though, insisted that he was carrying out the Supreme Court’s directives and rejected the PTI leader’s protests.
Earlier today, the political big hitters, including PPP co-chairman and former president Asif Ali Zardari, sprang into action to try and save the provincial government led by CM Hamza.
Later, PML-Q leader Moonis Elahi told the media that Chaudhry Shujaat Hussain, the party’s president, had declined to support his cousin Pervez Elahi, a PTI candidate for the position of Punjab chief minister.
“I’ve lost, and Imran Khan has also… A portion of the media paraphrased him as declaring, “Zardari has triumphed.
“There is no video statement available… In an interview with a local TV station, Chaudhry Shujaat claimed, “I went to meet him, but he refused to record the tape.
Chaudhry Shujaat’s orders to the parliamentarians, according to Pervez Elahi, are meaningless in light of Article 63 of the Constitution, and only the legislative leader has the authority to give instructions to party members.
Pervez Elahi will be the PML-nominee Q’s for Punjab chief minister, according to a tweet from party head Chaudhry Hussain Elahi, who claimed that all ten members of the provincial assembly made this decision during the parliamentary meeting.
He said, “If Deputy Speaker does not permit these votes on the basis of Ch Shujaat letter, he would [be] breaking the Pakistani Constitution and his duty!
Ataullah Tarar, the leader of the PML-N, on the other hand, called the letter from the PML-Q parliamentary meeting “false,” noting that even though the election campaign had been going on for weeks, the party meeting had only been convened yesterday.
“This is an afterthought regarding the legal side of the letter. Even though the election campaign has been ongoing for weeks, you nonetheless held a party meeting yesterday? No updates or footage were provided? What a loss. He replied to Moonis’ tweet by saying, “Total lies and a bogus letter, classic Moonis Elahi.
According to Article 63-A (b) of the Constitution, party legislators are instructed to vote for or against a candidate by the parliamentary party in a legislature and not by the party head, according to Ahmed Bilal Mehboob, president of the Pakistan Institute of Legislative Development and Transparency (Pildat).
On his official Twitter account, he stated: “So it is PML-Q legislative party in Punjab Assembly which commands its members & not Ch Shujaat.”
PTI leader Fawad Chaudhry cautioned that if the public’s will and the Supreme Court’s decision were not followed, the situation would worsen as uncertainty surrounding the election of the chief minister of Punjab.
“[Among the party leadership] there is no such despair… The Punjab by-election results have been made public by the electorate. The people’s choice will be carried out, and the process should be legal. People are becoming more hostile, and uncertainty and worry are at an all-time high.
