The new cabinet of Pakistan took oath on Tuesday, amid high drama as President Arif Alvi went on leave citing health issues after which Senate Chairman Sadiq Sanjrani had administered the oath to 31 federal ministers and three ministers of state, who will form the cabinet of the newly elected Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif. The PM had also appointed three advisors.
After the oath, PM Shehbaz Sharif tweeted, “federal cabinet was formed after thorough consultations with Mian Nawaz Sharif and the government’s coalition partners. It is my fervent hope that federal ministers, ministers of state and advisers will provide leadership, and resolve the problems of the people. Work, work and only work is our motto,”.
In the coalition government, 13 members are from Pakistan Muslim League (Nawaz) that includes Khawaja Muhammad Asif, Ahsan Iqbal, Rana Sanaullah, Sardar Ayaz Sadiq, Rana Tanveer Hussain, Khurram Dastgir Khan, Marriyum Aurangzeb, Khawaja Saad Rafique, Miftah Ismail, Javed Latif, Riaz Hussain Pirzada, Murtaza Javed Abbasi and Azam Nazeer Tarar while 11 members from Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) were inducted in the cabinet namely Syed Khursheed Shah, Syed Naveed Qamar, Sherry Rehman , Abdul Qadir Patel, Shazia Marri, Syed Murtaza Mahmud, Sajid Hussain Turi, Ehsan Ur Rehman Mazari and Abid Hussain.
Local media reports had previously claimed that the oath ceremony was scheduled on Monday, but the President refused to administer the oath to the members, which had forced the government to postpone the ceremony. Meanwhile, the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) will hear the foreign funding case against ex-PM Imran Khan-led Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaaf (PTI) every day starting from Tuesday, local media reported. Pakistan High Court on Thursday had asked the ECP to decide on the foreign funding case filed against PTI within a month, reported Dawn. Justice Kayani, who had delivered the judgment, said that if PTI received the funding from any prohibited sources then it would affect its status, including that of chairman Imran Khan, so it becomes important to dig out the truth.
The HC issued the direction after it dismissed an appeal of the PTI against the ECP order, rejecting two PTI applications seeking dismissal of the foreign funding case. The appeal asked for disassociating petitioner Akbar S. Babar from the case and keeping the PTI documents secret. The foreign funding case is pending since 14 November 2014, and it was filed by PTI founding member Akbar S Babar who had alleged that there were financial irregularities in the funding of the party from Pakistan and abroad.
The court said that ECP had the right to seek the assistance of Babar and come to conclusions based on the merits of the case. The order stated “no restriction can be imposed upon ECP to adopt any process of inquiry, investigation, scrutiny to reach out the mandate of assigned duty in terms of Article 17(3), read with enabling provisions of PPO 2002 as if any of the party funding has been received from prohibited sources, it would affect the status of such political party including its chairman,” reported the newspaper.