ISLAMABAD, 20 November 2002 — The Pakistan Muslim League (PML-Q) yesterday won the posts of the speaker and deputy speaker of the National Assembly, clearing the way for the election of its candidate Mir Zafarullah Khan Jamali as prime minister tomorrow.
President Pervez Musharraf has called the National Assembly session tomorrow to elect a prime minister. He is also due to address the nation on state television tonight.
Former law minister and veteran MP Chaudhry Amir Hussain of the PML-Q won 167 votes from a secret ballot in the 342-seat house. He was elected speaker of the lower house of Parliament. The Muttahida Majlis-e-Amal (MMA) candidate Liaquat Baloch garnered 80 votes and Aitzaz Ahsan, from former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto’s party, won 71 votes.
In the contest of deputy speaker, Sardar Muhammad Yaqoob of PML-Q outnumbered Hafiz Hussein Ahmed of MMA by winning 163 votes.
A simple majority of 172 votes in the 342-seat assembly is required to win the post of prime minister. Dissenters from Benazir Bhutto’s Pakistan People’s Party (PPP), who have said they will support a pro-government party without quitting the PPP, are expected to give the pro-military bloc a leading edge.
The MMA, PPP and the PML-Q have all named prime ministerial candidates but have not yet filed formal nominations. The PPP is still debating whether to drop their candidate and back the MMA’s candidate, Maulana Fazlur Rehman.
Last month’s poll saw 334 legislators elected, seven of them winning two seats each. So far 328 have been sworn in, including four who took their oath at the start of yesterday’s session after missing the weekend inauguration.
PPP legislators and the religious party alliance staged a token 15-minute walkout during the count when three blank ballot papers were discovered in the ballot box.
PPP parliamentary leader Makhdoom Amin Fahim charged that the blank papers indicated the balloting was rigged.
“It is the worst kind of rigging. The recovery of blank papers from the ballot box shows that the entire process was not clean,” Fahim said. MMA’s Rehman echoed his accusations.
