ISLAMABAD: Former prime minister Imran Khan criticized the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) for choosing a “sworn enemy” of his political faction as the caretaker chief minister of Punjab as Syed Mohsin Raza Naqvi was administered oath to the interim post by Governor Muhammad Baligh Ur Rehman on Sunday night.
Earlier, the ECP had selected Naqvi, a media mogul and a nominee of the ruling Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) party, after lengthy meeting in which it discussed profiles of four individuals nominated for the post by the outgoing chief minister, Chaudhry Pervaiz Elahi, and leader of the opposition, Hamza Shehbaz.
Elahi, a close ally of Khan’s Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) party, dissolved the Punjab Assembly on January 14 in a bid to mount pressure on Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif’s administration to hold snap polls across the country. The move was followed by the dissolution of the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa provincial legislature that was also ruled by Khan’s PTI party.
The outgoing Punjab chief minister subsequently proposed the names of Sardar Ahmad Nawaz Sukhera and Naveed Akram Cheema, while the opposition leader forwarded the names of Ahad Cheema and Naqvi. The matter was referred to the ECP after a parliamentary committee constituted by the Punjab Assembly speaker failed to develop a consensus on the matter before the final appointment was made.
“PMLN has history of selecting their own umpires but it’s incredible how ECP has selected a sworn enemy of PTI as Caretaker CM Punjab – a post meant for a non partisan person,” Khan said on Twitter.
The former PM shared a document with his social media post, saying Naqvi had made a voluntary return deal of Rs3.5 million with the country’s anti-graft National Accountability Bureau (NAB) while maintaining that he was no longer eligible to hold any public office in light of a Supreme Court judgment.
“ECP has helped reduce [Pakistan] to a Banana Republic making our democracy a joke,” he continued. “I will be holding a presser tomorrow [on Monday] to expose this entire farce.”
The newly appointed caretaker chief minister is the owner of the City News Network media house and is thought to be a close friend of Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) co-chairman Asif Ali Zardari and Pakistan Muslim League-Quaid (PML-Q) chief Chaudhry Shujaat Hussain.
Zardari’s party is part of the coalition government at the center while the PML-Q chief has been supporting PML-N in Punjab.
Elahi had already announced if the election commission appointed a “controversial person” on the post, he would challenge the move in a court.
Senior PTI figure Chaudhry Fawad Hussain also rejected the ECP’s pick, saying the electoral body “never failed to disappoint” his party.
“We reject the decision to appoint a controversial person such as Mohsin Naqvi as the chief minister,” he said. “There is no other option but to protest this system in the streets.”
Hussain also called on party workers to prepare for a campaign that would be led by Khan.