Daily Times

Party positions in Pakistan’s National Assembly have shifted following a letter from Speaker Sardar Ayaz Sadiq to the Election Commission of Pakistan, it emerged on Friday. The reshuffle, announced by the National Assembly Secretariat, sees 80 members of the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) – previously under the category of ‘Independent’ candidates – are now listed under the Sunni Ittehad Council. The new party positions, released on September 18, also outline the distribution of seats for other parties. The government benches include 110 members of the Pakistan Muslim League-N (PML-N), 69 members of the Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP), and 22 members of the Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM-P). Smaller parties like PML-Q and Muslim League-Zia hold five and one seats, respectively, with the Balochistan Awami Party (BAP) and National Party each having one seat. The opposition benches now comprise 80 members of the Sunni Ittehad Council, eight members of Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam (JUI-F), and eight independent members supported by PTI. Additional representation comes from Pashtunkhwa Milli Awami Party (PKMAP), Balochistan National Party-Mengal (BNP-M), and Majlis Wahdat-e-Muslimeen (MWM), each with one seat. The National Assembly currently has 213 members on the government benches, excluding 20 reserved seats, while the opposition has 80 members from Sunni Ittehad Council in addition to one-member each from other smaller parties. Meanwhile, one independent member on the opposition side recently joined PML-N. The list surfaced a day after the NA speaker wrote a letter to the ECP, stating that the SC judgment on reserved seats “cannot be implemented under the Amended Election Act, 2017”.