News
Tuesday, March 18, 2008
Mirza and Kundi nominated as speaker, deputy speaker of NA
ISLAMABAD: A joint parliamentary meeting of the coalition partners in the new government on Monday unanimously nominated Pakistan People’s Party (PPP)’s Fehmida Mirza and Faisal Karim Kundi to the offices of speaker and deputy speaker of the National Assembly. Conversely, a joint meeting of the opposition nominated PML-Q’s Israr Tareen for the post of NA speaker. Both meetings were held at Parliament House before the inaugural session of the NA. Addressing the newly elected members, PPP Co-chairman Asif Ali Zardari and PML-N chief Nawaz Sharif reiterated their commitment to restore the pre-November 3 judiciary through parliament. Mirza and Kundi received their nomination papers after the meeting. The process of their scrutiny will be completed on Tuesday. The election would take place on Wednesday. The heads of the component parties of the coalition also held a separate meeting in which they discussed the names of the candidates for premiership. They also discussed the means to draft a parliamentary resolution to restore the sacked judiciary and deliberated on a strategy to counter any move to block it. Separately, Khurshid Shah, senior PPP member, told reporters that the coalition government’s candidate for premiership would be announced on Thursday, AFP reported. muhammad bilal
Courtesy Daily Times