Provincial governments on Monday will be meeting their respective Opposition leaders of the Assemblies to reach a consensus over the names of caretaker Chief Ministers (CM).
Government and opposition in Sindh and Punjab are likely to meet today to finalise the name of interim CM.
Punjab CM Shehbaz Sharof will be meeting Punjab Assembly Opposition leader Mian Mehmmod ur Rasheed to mull over the name of interim CM. Whereas, Sindh CM Murad Ali Shah is expected to meet with Opposition leader Khawaja Izharul Hassan.
Earlier, reports had surfaced that government and opposition had finalised the name of Manzoor Afridi as Khyper Pakhtunkhwa’s (KP) caretaker CM.
However, on Sunday KP CM Pervez Khattak denied any such reports stating that no name had been finalized as yet.
Manzoor Afridi is the younger brother of Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf’s (PTI) Senator Ayub Afridi, thus as soon as the news spread of Afridi likely to be appointed caretaker CM for KP, opposition parties protested against the decision.
Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) and Awami National Party (ANP) maintained the view that Afridi was a donor of Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam- F (JUI-F) and his brother a Senator of PTI thus the decision will be considered as facilitator to pre-poll rigging in general elections.
ANP leader Mian Iftikhar Hussain had remarked that free and fair elections under Afridi were impossible if the interim CM is overseeing them himself.
However, PTI leader Fawad Chaudhry claimed that the name was recommended by the opposition and not by KP CM Khattak. He had said that the CM had just approved of the name.
Furthermore, government and opposition in Balochistan are yet to finalize the name of caretaker CM.
Balochistan CM Abdul Quddus Bizenjo have met opposition leader Abdul Rahim Ziaratwal three times till now and have failed to reach a consensus.
Some of the proposed names on the CM interim list were Alauddin Marri, Kamran Murtaza, Qazi Ashraf and Aslam Bhotani.
However, yet no consensus have been reached and the matter is likely to be sent to a parliamentary committee.
In the wake of the upcoming general elections, as per the demands of the opposition an interim setup will be taking charge of the public offices once the government’s tenure ends. The main objective of the caretaker setup is to ensure free and fair elections.
As per the Constitution the government (PM) and the opposition leader of the lower house finalize the name of caretaker PM and respectively CM and opposition leader of provincial assemblies for the names of caretaker CM.
