ISLAMABAD: The National Assembly is set to elect PML-N candidate Shehbaz Sharif as the next Prime Minister of Pakistan on March 3.
The PML-N candidate for PM needs just 169 votes, whereas the coalition partners, led by PML-N have 200 MNAs, excluding those who will be elected on the reserved seats.
As the coalition partners have a clear majority in the Parliament, Shehbaz Sharif will easily be elected as the new Prime Minister of Pakistan on March 3.
On Thursday, the National Assembly held its inaugural session for the oath-taking of newly-elected MNAs.
Punjab Chief Minister Maryam Nawaz, Senator Ishaq Dar, former President Asif Zardari, and many other eminent politicians witnessed the oath-taking of MNAs in the Parliament on Thursday morning.
Earlier, President Arif Alvi has summoned the maiden session of the National Assembly hours before the lower house of parliament is set to meet for the oath-taking of newly-elected MNAs on Thursday (Feb 29).
The president summoned the session of the Parliament at 10am today.
This development surfaced hours after the Election Commission of Pakistan disclosed on Wednesday that the Sunni Ittehad Council chief had written a letter to the ECP saying his party did not participate in the elections and the SIC does not need reserve seats.
Earlier, in a surprising turn of events, the chief of the Sunni Ittehad Council (SIC) has seemingly relinquished the reserved seats in the National Assembly without the knowledge of their ally, Imran Khan, and the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI).
A letter purportedly written by the SIC chief to the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) was revealed during a crucial hearing at the ECP to decide the fate of 23 reserved seats not yet allocated to any political party in the National Assembly.
The PTI formed an alliance with the SIC to secure a significant share of the 70 reserved seats for women and minorities in the National Assembly.
However, the ECP, estimating at least 23 seats for SIC, left the final decision to the election commissioners. The remaining 47 seats had already been allotted to other political parties.
Disputes arose as PMLN and PPP claimed that SIC did not qualify for reserved seats as it did not participate as a political party in the general election, and SIC Chief Hamid Raza won as an independent candidate.
