Punjab Assembly Elects CM Amidst PML-N’s Protest

ISLAMABAD, August 19, 2018: The Provincial Assembly of Punjab elected PTI’s nominee Usman Ahmad Khan Buzdar as Chief Minister of the province amidst PML-N lawmakers’ protest against the election on Sunday, observes Free and Fair Election Network (FAFEN) in Daily Factsheet.

Following are key observations of the proceedings during third and last sitting of the Assembly’s first session:

 Members’ Participation

• The Assembly met for two hours and 34 minutes.
• The sitting started at 1211 hours against the scheduled time of 1100 hours.
• The Speaker presided over the entire proceedings while the Deputy Speaker was also present.
• As many as 315 (85% of the total membership) members were present at the outset and 296 (80%) at the adjournment of the sitting.
• As many as 345 lawmakers voted in the election of the Chief Minister.

Election of the Chief Minister

• The House elected PTI’s Usman Ahmad Khan Buzdar as the Chief Minister Punjab with 186 lawmakers voting for him while PML-N’s candidate Hamza Shehbaz Sharif got 159 votes. The voting was held through division in the lobbies.

Output

• The House unanimously adopted a resolution condemning a blasphemous cartoon contest in Netherlands.

Order and Institutionalization

• As many as four lawmakers including the Chief Minister-elect and the runner-up candidate made speeches following the election of the Chief Minister consuming 47 minutes of the proceedings.
• The lawmakers raised seven Points of Order consuming 10 minutes of the proceedings.
• The lawmakers belonging to PML-N staged a 18-minute long protest against the election of PTI candidate as Chief Minister.
• The session was prorogued sine die.

Transparency

• ‘Orders of the Day’ was available to the legislators, observers and others.
• Attendance of Members is available on the Assembly’s website.

The daily factsheet is based on direct observation of the Punjab Assembly proceedings conducted by PATTAN Development Organization – a member organization of FAFEN. Errors and omissions are regretted.

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