KARACHI: Awais Qadir Shah, the candidate from the Pakistan People’s Party (PPP), has secured victory as the 12th Speaker of the Sindh Assembly. The polling for the assembly speaker saw 147 members participating, with Awais Qadir receiving 111 votes.
His opponent, MQM’s Advocate Sofia Shah, secured 36 votes in the process. Notably, Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) and Jamat-e-Islami (JI) chose to boycott the election for the speaker and deputy speaker of the Sindh Assembly.
Agha Siraj Durrani, the outgoing speaker, announced the results and administered the oath to the newly elected speaker, Awais Qadir Shah. Shah had previously won from PS-23 Sukkur with 69,266 votes, defeating GDA’s Inayatullah, who secured 21,137 votes.
In an earlier session, Agha Siraj Durrani administered the oath-taking of elected Sindh Assembly members. The PPP holds the majority in the legislature with 114 seats, followed by MQM-P with 36 members, Sunni Ittehad Council with nine, GDA with three, and Jamaat Islami with one seat.
The PPP’s dominance in the house ensures it doesn’t require support from other parties to secure the election of its chief minister. The election for Sindh’s chief minister is scheduled for tomorrow, with Murad Ali Shah as the PPP’s candidate for the CM office.
The nomination papers for chief minister candidates could be submitted from 1:00 pm to 3:00 pm, with scrutiny completed by 6:00 pm and the final list of candidates displayed at 7:00 pm.
