Raja Pervez Ashraf becomes Prime Minister of Pakistan

Following a week of political chaos, Raja Pervez Ashraf has been elected as the 25^th Prime Minister of Pakistan.

The issuance of non-bailable arrest warrants for Makhdoom Shahabuddin, the first-choice candidate of the Pakistan Peoples’ Party (PPP), proved the way for Raja Pervez Ashraf, the covering candidate.

Without any doubt, an achievement which an average parliamentarian like Pervez Ashraf could have only dreamed of, President Asif Ali Zardari made it.

As a candidate of the ruling PPP and its coalition partners, he secured 211 votes in the Lower House of 342 members while his contender Sardar Mehtab Abbasi of the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) bagged 89 votes in the election.

Although 310 parliamentarians were present in the House when the NA session started only 300 took part in electoral process while 10 members from Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam-Fazl (JUI-F) abstained from contesting their votes.

Earlier on Friday, the allied parties made all out efforts to convince Maulana Fazlur Rehman, the chief of JUI-F, but failed to do so.

However, the Maulana withdrew his candidature at the eleventh hours saying that his party would abstain from the electoral process.

The other candidates of PPP, Makhdoom Shahabuddin and Qamar Zaman Kaira had withdrawn their nominations in favor of Raja Pervez Ashraf, the unanimous candidates of the allied parties.

He was born on December 26, 1950 in Sanghar, Sindh.  Ashraf started his political drive in 1988 and participated in 1989 bye-elections. Ashraf made his appearance in the elections of 1990, 1993 and 1997.

In national elections of 2002, Ashraf defeated PML (N)’s candidate Chaudhary Zaman by a huge margin. In 2008 elections, Ashraf defeated PML (Q)’s candidate Qasim Javed.

He had served as the Minister for Water and Power from 2008-2011, and later was made minister for Information Technology (IT).

Ashraf has been held responsible for load shedding dilemma the country has been facing since 2008 and has also been questioned by the Supreme Court in the inglorious Rental Power Projects (RPPs) case.

Short URL: https://www.newspakistan.pk/?p=26716

Posted by Faisal Farooq on Jun 23 2012. Filed under Latest News, National, Pakistan. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.