LAHORE: The province of Punjab is again facing political uncertainty, where the opposition has submitted a no-confidence motion against Chief Minister, Speak Punjab Assembly, and Deputy Speaker of Assembly. This development comes days after former Prime Minister Imran Khan announced the date for dissolution of the Assemblies.
Pakistan Muslim League Nawaz (PML-N) and Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) claimed that they had completed their numbers and the speaker of the Punjab Assembly showed confidence that the numbers are in his hand.
What is this number game and how can Elahi defeat the motion of no-confidence? Let’s clear the matter by going over a clause from the Constitution of Pakistan. Article 130 clause (4) reads: The votes of the majority of the total membership of the Provincial Assembly shall elect the Chief Minister.
“If no member secures such a majority in the first poll, a second poll shall be held between the members who secure the two highest numbers of votes in the first poll and the member who secures a majority of votes of the members present and voting shall be declared to have been elected as Chief Minister.”
This makes one question, what number of majority is required since the provincial assemblies’ constitution said it should be a “simple majority.”
Hence, Punjab Assembly has 371 seats, which means the same number of ministers can vote against and favor the Chief Minister’s outage on the motion of no confidence. According to this scenario, the Chief Minister of Punjab, Pervaiz Elahi needs 186 votes to secure his seat.
Meanwhile, the opposition claims that they have completed 186 numbers in favor of the outage of the current chief executive.
However, the simple majority of the Punjab Assembly consists of 185 and 186 voters.
If CM Punjab follows the directives of Governor Punjab Baligh-ur-Rehman and knocks on the gates of the house for Confidence, then he needs a majority of 186 or more votes.
The speaker of the Punjab Assembly described the order of Governor Punjab calling the meeting of the provincial assembly an “illegal” act.
He said, “I didn’t prorogue Assembly meeting, adjourned it, so the as per rules, provincial assembly governor didn’t have right to calls meeting before proroguing previous one”.
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