The minutes of the session are presided over by NA President Raja Pervaiz Ashraf.
ISLAMABAD: The National Assembly session convened to elect the new president and vice president is underway amid protests by Sunni Ittehad Council (SIC) lawmakers.
Raja Pervaiz Ashraf presides over the session until a new president is elected.
Once the presidential elections are held, Ashraf will swear in the newly elected custodian of the House.
After the swearing-in, the new president will immediately take charge of the chamber. Ashraf will subsequently step down from his position.
The new president will conduct the election of the vice president immediately after taking office.
The candidates
The SIC, comprising mostly PTI-backed independents who won the elections, nominated Malik Aamir Dogar as its presidential candidate and the political party filed nomination papers for Junaid Akbar for the post of vice president.
Whereas, the allied parties have nominated Sardar Ayaz Sadiq of Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) and Syed Ghulam Mustafa of Pakistan People's Party (PPP) as candidates for the posts of President and Vice President , respectively.
today's session
Before the start of the session, a meeting of the SIC parliamentary party was held in the lobby of the house, where they promised to continue their protest in the assembly.
This is the second consecutive day that the SIC protests in the National Assembly over rigged results.
As the session began, President Ashraf asked if there were any new members present who had missed the previous day's swearing-in.
As no new members showed up, the speaker gave the floor to Omar Ayub Khan of SIC to speak on a point of order.
The legislator alleged that there were foreigners in the house.
“The people who got a false warrant have entered the house, therefore, they should be expelled,” Omar said, adding that “prisoner number 804”, the number assigned to PTI founder Imran Khan, in Jail Adiala, should be brought to the Assembly.
JUI-F boycotts
Raising serious reservations over the results of the 2024 elections, Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam-Fazl (JUI-F) chief Maulana Fazlur Rehman has announced that his party will not participate in the elections for top political posts: President , prime minister and prime minister. President of the National Assembly (AN).
The JUI-F leader, speaking to reporters in Islamabad on Thursday, said his party would sit in opposition and its legislators would abstain from voting during the upcoming assembly election events.
Responding to a question about JUI-F's strategy for a protest movement, he said: “Wait for it. We will represent the nation soon.”
