Islamabad: Hamza Shahbaz, the son of Pakistani Prime Minister Shahbaz Sharif was sworn in as the chief minister of Punjab province on Saturday, Khaleej Times reported.
This was a day after he was re-elected to the post by just three votes amidst high drama when the Deputy Speaker rejected 10 crucial votes of his rival candidate Pervez Elahi.
Punjab Governor Balighur Rehman administered the oath to Hamza, 47 at the Governor House in Punjab.
The run-off election for the chief minister was held in the Punjab Assembly on Friday, in line with the instructions of the Supreme Court of Pakistan, wherein Hamza was declared the winner, although his Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) party did not have a majority in the Assembly after the by-elections held on July 17.
Hamza managed to secure a win by the barest of margins after Deputy Speaker Dost Muhammad Mazari rejected 10 votes of his rival candidate, Chaudhry Pervaiz Elahi, an ally of ousted PM Imran Khan, and cited Article 63-A of the Constitution in doing so. These 10 votes of Elahi’s PML-Q were not counted, on the pretext that they had violated the orders of their party chief, Chaudhry Shujaat Hussain.
In the 368-member Punjab Assembly, Hamza’s party received 179 votes, while Elahi’s party garnered 176 votes.
Mazari said that as party chief Hussain’s instruction to PML-Q members to vote for Hamza instead of Elahi held greater sway.
