Murad Ali Shah sworn-in as Sindh CM after easy election

Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) nominee Syed Murad Ali Shah was sworn-in as the new chief minister of Sindh on Friday by Sindh Governor Dr Ishratul Ibad after an easy election earlier in the day.

Speaker Agha Siraj Durrani announced that the PPP nominee received 88 votes while the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) nominee, Khurram Sher Zaman, received three votes in the House. The main opposition party, Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM) had boycotted the election.

Shah, who until the resignation of Qaim Ali Shah as chief minster on Wednesday, was working as a senior minister for finance, had only one rival candidate from the opposition benches — MPA Khurram Sher Zaman of the PTI.

The PPP, which has taken a lot of flak for its lack of governance in the province, has replaced octogenarian Qaim Ali Shah with a relatively young leader as part of a campaign to ready itself for the 2018 general elections.

Friday’s contest was a one-sided affair with an overwhelming majority supporting the PPP candidate and the MQM boycotting. The provincial assembly session was summoned by the governor at 3pm to elect the new chief minister.

The legislature comprised 168 members, but there were 165 MPAs as three seats are vacant. The PPP had 91 members in the Sindh Assembly, a number big enough to give Murad Ali Shah a comfortable majority to win and form a cabinet of choice.

PTI candidate Khurram Sher Zaman had no chance of winning the election with his party having only four lawmakers in the house. And of these four, only three cast their votes as MPA Syed Hafeezuddin had already announced that he was quitting the party and resigning as MPA to join the Mustafa Kamal-led Pak Sarzameen Party.

Speaker Agha Siraj Durrani chaired the session of the Sindh Assembly.

The House elected the new leader through open polling instead of using the secret ballot.

Son of former Sindh chief minister Abdullah Shah, Murad Ali Shah has now becomes the 27th Sindh CM – the first time the son of a former Sindh chief minister has elected as the chief of the provincial government.

MQM, the main opposition party of the province, had decided not to take part in the process to elect the new CM. The MQM with 50 lawmakers in the house was the main opposition party with MPA Khawaja Izharul Hassan as leader of the opposition.

The parliamentary leadership of the opposition announced on Thursday that the party’s lawmakers will remain neutral as they will neither support nor oppose the election of Murad Ali Shah as the new chief executive.

The MQM’s parliamentary leader and the leader of opposition said that their party had earlier supported the candidacy of Qaim Ali Shah to become chief executive for the second consecutive time, but that decision didn’t go well for urban areas of the province.

Ahmed said that the PPP’s continued rule in the province had caused the gap between the rural and urban parts of Sindh to widen. He said the ruling party had been in the practice of making decisions by using its majority in the house in a brutal and cruel manner, which doesn’t augur well for the citizens of the province.

He said that with Murad Ali Shah becoming the new CM of Sindh, the PPP will continue with its rule with its trademark bad governance.

One of the other opposition parties in the House, Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N), also announced it would not support the PPP candidate.

“After comprehensive deliberation and discussion, it was decided that the PML-N will participate in the election proceedings of the Sindh Assembly which are to be held tomorrow. But the PML-N will not support the candidate of the PPP for the election of leader of the house because we believe that the PPP government which has been ruling over Sindh for the last eight years only promotes corruption, bad governance, nepotism, favouritism, etc,” said a statement issued on Thursday by Muhammad Ismail Rahoo, who is the parliamentary leader of the PML-N in the house.

Soon after the decision of a top-level meeting of the PPP in Dubai on July 24 to bring a new CM in Sindh, Murad Ali Shah and other lawmakers of the party met in Dubai with Pakistan Muslim League-Functional (PML-R) Chief Pir Pagara to get his blessings to become the new chief minister.

Earlier, news channels reported that efforts had been made by the PPP leadership to persuade the PTI not to field its candidate for the CM’s poll so as to enable Shah to become chief minister unopposed. But the PTI snubbed all such efforts.