Will President Alvi administer oath to PM Shehbaz today?

The newly elected Prime Minister of Pakistan, Shehbaz Sharif, will take the oath of office today. However, it is not clear who will administer his oath.

The oath-taking ceremony is scheduled to take place at the President’s House at 3:00 pm today. Still, it remains uncertain whether President Arif Alvi will administer the oath this time or not, as in the past, he had refused to do so.

In April 2022, when PTI founder Imran Khan was ousted from the premiership by a no-confidence motion and Shehbaz Sharif was elected as PM for the remaining tenure, President Arif Alvi had refused to administer the oath. After that, Senate Chairman Sadiq Sanjarani had administered the oath to PM.

President Alvi, who belongs to Imran Khan’s PTI, will retire next week, and the Election Commission of Pakistan has set March 9 as the presidential election date, in which Asif Ali Zardari and Mahmood Khan Achakzai will face off.

It has been noted that President Alvi was not happy after the ousting of Imran Khan from the premiership and expressed his displeasure by not administering the oath to Shehbaz Sharif. He also refused to summon the meeting of the newly elected National Assembly after the recent general elections, and as a result, the Speaker of the assembly summoned the assembly session.

In light of the above facts, it is not clear who will administer the oath, but it is certain that it will take place today. Chief of Army Staff and other service chiefs, chief ministers, the outgoing caretaker prime minister, and governors will attend the swearing-in ceremony.

Invitations to the Prime Minister’s swearing-in ceremony were also sent to Asif Zardari and Bilawal Bhutto.

Shehbaz, 72, had earlier served as prime minister of a coalition government from April 2022 to August 2023 before the National Assembly was dissolved to pave the way for general elections held last month.

On Sunday, Shehbaz Sharif was comfortably elected as Leader of the House in the lower house of the Parliament by winning a majority vote amidst sloganeering by the Opposition. Shehbaz, the consensus candidate of the PML-N, the PPP, and other allies, received 201 votes in the 336-member assembly. His challenger SIC’s Omar Ayub Khan secured 92 votes.