ISLAMABAD: Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) candidate Mirza Muhammad Afridi has been elected as the Deputy Chairman Senate.
The voting process to elect deputy chairman Senate inside the Upper House of the Parliament after a contest between PDM’s candidate Abdul Ghafoor Haideri and government coalition-backed Mirza Afridi.
Overall 98 Senators have cast their vote during the deputy chairman election. Newly-elected Chairman Senate Sadiq Sanjrani announced that Afridi had received 54 votes, while Haideri received 44 the deputy chairman election
This indicates seven opposition senators likely voted for the PTI-backed candidate. This is the second victory for the government in the elections for the top Senate posts.
Earlier, Senator Sadiq Sanjrani took oath as Senate chairman for the second time as House members from the opposition alliance raised a ruckus over wasted votes.
The Senate chairmanship candidate for Sadiq Sanjrani has won the top seat in the upper house of the parliament supported by the ruling party’s alliance as he contended against opposition alliance’s Yousuf Raza Gilani.
With a total of eight votes rejected, Gilani received 42 valid votes, while Sanjrani won the election after bagging 48 votes. In total, 98 senators voted in the election. However, presiding officer Syed Muzaffar Hussain Shah overruled their objection, saying the seven votes were rejected because they were not stamped correctly. Another vote was rejected because it had been cast in favour of both the candidates.
The opposition challenged the result of the Senate chairman election after it was announced that seven votes cast in favour of opposition candidate Gilani were rejected.
