Following its agreement with the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) over the formation of the future government, the Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) is expected to announce its nominees for the posts of Balochistan chief minister, Senate chairman and provincial governors soon.
The development comes after the PPP struck an agreement with the PML-N to support the latter in forming the future government by voting for its prime ministerial candidate Shehbaz Sharif in exchange for key constitutional posts along with a coalition government in Balochistan.
The party emerged as “King’s party” with its 54 National Assembly (NA) after neither the PML-N (79 NA seats) nor the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf backed independents (92 NA seats) managed to secure a simple majority to form their government in the Centre — allowing the PPP to bargain for the slot of president’s office among other key constitutional posts.
Sources say the party has mulled over three names for the Balochistan chief minister’s post, including Sadiq Imrani, Sanaullah Zehri and Sarfraz Bugti, and will announce the nominee for the province’s chief executive within the next 36 hours, reported The News.
For the post of Senate chairman, the top constitutional post after the president, the PPP is considering the names of the party’s Vice Chairman Yousuf Raza Gillani, Salim Mandviwalla, Farooq Naik and Sherry Rehman.
However, Gillani is likely to be the party’s first choice for the post of Senate chairman, sources added.
If nominated by the party, the former prime minister — elected as senator from Islamabad in 2021 as a joint candidate of the opposition — will have to vacate Multan’s NA-148 seat that he won during the February 8 polls.
His younger son is then likely to contest the seat in the subsequent by-election.
Furthermore, PPP Co-Chairman Asif Ali Zardari, who is poised to become the country’s president for the second time, will announce the party’s nominee for Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP) governor either today or tomorrow (Friday) as per the party’s KP Deputy General Secretary Abrar Saeed.
Consultation is underway on the names of five nominees for KP governor including party’s Central Information Secretary Faisal Karim Kundi, Shuja Khan, Muhammad Ali Shah Bacha, Humayun Khan and Zahir Ali Shah.
A day earlier, sources revealed that PPP is mulling over the names of Makhdoom Ahmed Mahmood, Qamar Zaman Kaira and Nadeem Afzal Chan as potential candidates for the governor’s post in Punjab
The PPP will make the final decision concerning its choices for the Senate chairman and Punjab governor before the newly elected members of the NA and provincial assemblies take their oath.
Additionally, the names of Shazia Marri and Nafisa Shah are being considered for the post of NA’s deputy speaker slot.
Meanwhile, the PML-N is considering the name of Ayaz Sadiq for the NA speaker post. While Muttahida Qaumi Movement-Pakistan (MQM-P) is likely to get the ministries of IT, ports and shipping and overseas Pakistanis in the coalition government in exchange for their support to the PPP-PML-N alliance.
