Punjab Assembly session: Who will be the new Speaker?

The Punjab Assembly (PA) session to elect its new Speaker has started today (Friday). Today’s session will be chaired by Panel of Chairman Wasim Badozai.

The seat fell vacant when the previous Speaker, Chaudhry Pervaiz Elahi, was sworn in as Punjab Chief Minister (CM) after the Supreme Court’s (SC) verdict in his favour.

Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) and Pakistan Muslim League (PML-Q) have the majority in the Assembly, and have nominated Sibtain Khan as their joint candidate while the Opposition parties, Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) and Pakistan People’s Party (PPP), have nominated Saiful Malook Khokhar as their joint candidate.

Khan is currently serving as Provincial Minister of Punjab for Forestry, Wildlife and Fisheries since 2020.

Sibtain Khan claimed that the PML-N would “fail to cause any interruption” during the Speaker’s election. He hoped that he would win the contest “effortlessly”.

PML-N’s Khokhar said that the Pakistan Democratic Movement (PDM) will win. “They [PTI] will know who is better and who is a thief,” he added.