Daily Times

The Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) will formally announce Chairman Imran Khan as candidate for the next prime minister of Pakistan on Monday.

“A parliamentary meeting of the party will take place on Monday (today) at a private hotel in Islamabad,” PTI spokesperson Fawad Chaudhry said on Sunday. All MNAs-elect of the party have been directed to be present at the meeting, he said. “Imran Khan will be formally announced as the party’s nominee for prime minister’s slot during the meeting,” he added.

Claiming that the PTI is now in the clear to form government in the Centre, Chaudhry said, “PTI’s seat tally in the National Assembly currently stands at 125 after the inclusion of independents.” Allies and reserved seats will take the PTI tally to 174 seats in Lower House, he said. Further after the support of Balochistan National Party-Mengal (BNP-M), the party will have 177 seats, he claimed.

PTI had emerged victorious with 116 NA seats during the July 25 general election.

On Friday, the PTI and MQM-P also signed a nine-point memorandum of understanding (MoU) for the formation of new government in the Centre.

Sources said the PTI has decided to induct MQM-P in the federal cabinet. The MQM-P will have one minister in the federal cabinet, while an adviser would be inducted later.

Last week, however, the political parties aligned against the PTI announced that they were fielding their own candidate for the top slots. The parties, including the PML-N, PPP, MMA and ANP, decided to field their own consensus candidates for the prime minister, speaker and deputy speaker slots in the National Assembly.

Published in Daily Times, August 6^th 2018.