Ayaz Sadiq re-elected as NA Speaker by landslide margin

Sardar Ayaz Sadiq of PML-N and Shafqat Mahmood of Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf (PTI) were contesting for the top slot of the two lower house of the parliament.

Acting Speaker Murtaza Javed Abbasi, earlier informed the house that initially three nominations were received, but MNA Ghazi Ghulab Jamal withdrew his nomination.

All the main political parties, including PPP, MQM, JUI-F, Jamaat-e-Islami, as well as independent members from FATA had announced their support for Sadiq, who was deseated after an election tribunal had cancelled his election from Lahore’s NA-122 constituency.

Ayaz Sadiq in a close contest recently defeated PTI’s Aleem Khan and returned to the National Assembly.

Ayaz Sadiq managed to secured 268 in the election for NA Speaker whereas his opponent only got 31 votes.

He thanked Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif for nominating and voting for him in the election. He also thanked all the parties and the parliamentarians for electing him for the key position.

Sadiq, addressing the lower house of the Parliament after taking his oath, said that he has no regrets or enmity with anyone.

“We will protect democracy and the constitution at all costs”, he added.

Ayaz Sadiq was proposed by Zahid Hamid, Abdul Hakeem Baloch, Tariq Fazal Chaudhry, Muhammad Talha Chaudhry, Muhammad Junaid Anwar Chaudhry and Tahira Aurangzeb. Shafqat Mehmood was proposed by Shah Mehmood Qureshi, Shireen Mazari and Munazza Hassan.

The National Assembly session started at 09:00 am today to elect the new speaker of the house.

All-Parties Conference cannot be a substitute for Parliament: Shafqat Mehmood

Shafqat Hussain started off his address by congratulating Ayaz Sadiq for being re-elected as the Speaker of the National Assembly.

“Speaker enjoys the support of his political party but his responsibility changes but once a MNA  is elected on the position, their role completely changes. He becomes the guardian of the National Assembly, Mehmood said.

Mehmood said that National Assembly is the highest institution in the constitution.

PTI leader Shafqat Mehmood said that All-Parties Conferences cannot be a substitute for the Parliament. He added that there are several issues which have not been discussed in the lower and upper house of the Parliament.

He added that role of military courts along with a National Action Plan should have been discussed in the National Assembly as well.

“We want democracy and the constitution to be strengthened in the country”, the PTI leader said.

‘Honeymoon period’ over for the government, says Khursheed

Leader of the Opposition in National Assembly Khursheed Shah said that the Parliament is hopeful that Ayaz Sadiq will fulfill his responsibilities as the NA Speaker.

Khursheed said that the government has not accomplished anything as yet. He urged the Parliament to start working on the electoral reforms as soon as possible.

“The honeymoon period of the federal government is over. It will face a lot of criticisms in the future”, he added.

The opposition leader stated that Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) played a key role in strengthening the state institution and he hoped that the Speaker will also play his role as well.

We should think that is this the country our founding father dreamt of: Farooq Sattar

Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM) National Assembly member Farooq Sattar congratulated Ayaz Sadiq on behalf of his party on being re-elected as the speaker of the house.

Farooq Sattar, addressing the National Assembly session, said that the condition of MQM and Ayaz Sadiq is pretty much the same.

“We had left the assembly after resigning just when Ayaz Sadiq was deseated by the election commission. Now that he has been re-elected as the Speaker, we also returned to the parliament”, he said.

The MQM Parliamentarian added that Rashid Godil, who was injured in a shooting incident in Karachi, is also recovering.

He added that we should think whether this is the country which Quaid-e-Azam and Allama Iqbal dreamt of.