National Assembly Elects Leader of the House

ISLAMABAD, August 1, 2017: The National Assembly elected 28th Prime Minister of Pakistan on Tuesday, observes Free and Fair Election Network (FAFEN).

Shahid Khaqan Abbasi secured 221 votes, Syed Naveed Qamar 47 votes, Sheikh Rasheed 33 votes and Sahibzada Tariq Ullah four votes. The election was held through division in the lobbies.

Following are key observations of the proceedings during first sitting of the 44th session:

 Members’ Participation

  • The National Assembly met for three hours and 30 minutes.
  • The sitting started at 1551 hours against the scheduled time of 1500 hours.
  • The Speaker presided over the sitting for initial two hours and 41 minutes while the Deputy Speaker chaired the rest of the proceedings.
  • The Leader of the Opposition was present for two hours and ten minutes.
  • As many as 257 (75%) lawmakers were present at the outset and 94 (27%) at the adjournment of the sitting.
  • The parliamentary leaders of PPPP, MQM, JUI-F, PML-F, PkMAP, JI, PML, PML-Z, ANP, APML, BNP, AMLP, NPP, NP and QWP-S attended the sitting.
  • Nine minority lawmakers were present.

Representation and Responsiveness

  • The Prime Minister-elect addressed the House for 30 minutes. As many as nine lawmakers including the losing candidates also spoke on the subject of the election of the Prime Minister consuming an hour and 30 minutes of the proceedings.
  • The newly elected lawmaker from NA-260 Engineer Usman Badini took oath of the membership.

Transparency

  • ‘Orders of the Day’ was available to the legislators, observers and public.
  • Information on Members’ attendance is available on the National Assembly website.

This daily factsheet is based on direct observation of the National Assembly’s proceedings, conducted by the Free and Fair Election Network (FAFEN). Errors and omissions are excepted