PML-N and allied parties’ candidate Shehbaz Sharif and Sunni Ittehad Council (SIC) candidate Omar Ayub Khan will face each other as the newly-elected members of the National Assembly (MNAs) will elect the country’s next prime minister tomorrow, reported 24NewsHD TV channel on Saturday.  

Supporters of Shehbaz Sharif abd Omar Ayub filed their nomination papers for the election of office of the prime minister at the National Assembly Secretariat.

Secretary of National Assembly received the nomination papers.

Eight nomination papers were filed on behalf of Shehbaz Sharif and four on behalf of Omar Ayub.

Khawaja Asif, Syed Khurshid Shah, Ahsan Iqbal, Sardar Muhammad Yusuf, Ataullah Tarar, Aun Chaudhry, Tariq Bashir Cheema, Hanif Abbasi, Rana Tanveer, Ishaq Dar and others submitted Shehbaz Sharif’s nomination papers.

Asad Qaiser, Malik Muhammad Amir Dogar, Ali Muhammad and Barrister Gohar Ali Khan represented Omar Ayub.

Later after completing the scrutiny by 3:00 pm, the nomination papers of both Shehbaz Sharif and Omar Ayub were accepted. Though SIC raised objected to the nomination of Shehbaz Sharif as prime minister but it was set aside. PML-N and allies, however, did not raise any objection to Omar Ayub's nomination papers.

According to the election schedule issued by the National Assembly secretariat, today is the last day for submitting nomination papers for the office of the prime minister.

Scrutiny of the nomination papers will be held at 3:00 pm in the afternoon on Saturday.

The nomination papers can be obtained from the legislation branch of the National Assembly.

The National Assembly will set aside all other items on the agenda and will solely focus on the election of the new prime minister.

Yesterday, the MNAs elected PML-N and allied parties’ candidates Sardar Ayaz Sadiq, and Syed Ghulam Mustafa Shah as speaker and deputy speaker of the lower House of the parliament, respectively.  

Sadiq got 199 votes, while his opponent, Amir Dogar of the SIC, secured 91 votes in the election for the seat of speaker.

In the election for the seat of deputy speaker, Shah received 197 votes while SIC candidate Junaid Akbar stood second with 91 votes.

Later, the outgoing speaker Raja Pervaiz Ashraf administered the oath to the speaker amid thunderous applause by the members present in the House.

The present assembly is the product of the general elections held in the country on February 8.

Reporter Usman Khan