By Staff Reporter
PESHAWAR: Lawmakers in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Province elected Sohail Afridi, a member of the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf party, as the new chief minister on Monday, handing him 90 votes in a 145-seat assembly session disrupted by an opposition walkout and clouded by questions over the resignation of his predecessor, Ali Amin Gandapur.
Afridi, who needed at least 73 votes to win, faced no effective challenge after the opposition boycotted the vote, which they called unconstitutional. The three rival candidates, Maulana Lutfur Rehman of the Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam-Fazl, Sardar Shah Jehan Yousaf of the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz and Arbab Zarak Khan of the Pakistan Peoples Party, each received zero votes, Babar Saleem Swati, the speaker of the provincial assembly, announced.
He added that three assembly members were abroad and did not participate. The proceedings were overshadowed by uncertainty surrounding Gandapur’s resignation, which the province’s governor, Faisal Karim Kundi, returned on Sunday night over “disparate and unalike signatures” on two separate letters. Kundi summoned Gandapur to the governor’s house on Wednesday to verify their authenticity.
The opposition’s objections surfaced early. Dr. Ibadullah, the opposition leader, brandished a copy of the Constitution and insisted that the vote could not proceed without the governor first accepting the resignation and denotifying the cabinet. “According to this Constitution, the procedure is that first your resignation is accepted. Then the administration denotifies the cabinet,” Dr. Ibadullah said, noting that neither step had occurred. “In the presence of an existing chief minister, the election of a new chief minister is unconstitutional. So we will not become a part of this unconstitutional procedure.” He and other opposition members then exited.
Swati, the speaker, proceeded regardless, ruling the election lawful. He said Gandapur had submitted his resignation to the governor twice and announced it publicly. Addressing the opposition’s claims, Swati said: “The point raised by the opposition leader, I give a ruling of the speaker to make it clear what the Constitution says: this is unconstitutional and in contravention of the law.”
“Some people wished for Afridi not to become the new chief minister; the Constitution did not function according to people’s wishes,” he said. “The chief minister of a province is a constitutional office holder in terms of Article 130. Clause eight of this article provides for tendering of resignation by the chief minister under his hand … I rule that an election for the post of chief minister of KP is being lawfully conducted in accordance with the Constitution and the rules of the assembly.”
The governor’s return of the resignation letters intensified the dispute. In a late Sunday post on the social media platform X, Kundi said the documents had been “returned with observation.” His letter to Gandapur cited the Oct. 8 and Oct. 11 submissions’ mismatched signatures. “Since I am out of the city and intend to return to Peshawar on the eve of October 15, therefore, you are advised to visit the Governor House on October 15 at 3 pm so that the authenticity of the alleged resignations can be verified and the matter is settled as per the mandate of the Constitution of the Islamic Republic of Pakistan.” Gandapur replied on X: “Finally, the resignation submitted on October 8, previously denied by the Governor Office, also acknowledged.” He insisted both bore his “authentic signatures.”
The Oct. 8 resignation, typed on official letterhead and posted by Gandapur on X, was initially denied by the governor’s office. On Oct. 11, Kundi acknowledged receiving a handwritten version, saying it would be processed after legal review.
The session opened with Gandapur, who announced his resignation on Oct. 8 at the direction of Imran Khan, the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf founder, extending “advance congratulations” to Afridi amid desk-thumping from treasury benches. Gandapur said the party’s “fight for justice would continue under the leadership of party founder Imran Khan” and expressed pride in resigning as instructed.
He urged allowing “the democratic process to continue and to refrain from putting any obstacles in this regard,” adding that his tenure’s actions were on record for scrutiny. “A government can only succeed, a province can only succeed if it is self-sustainable. Unfortunately, when our government came into power, we only had enough money for salaries for 18 months. But I am proudly saying right now that we have Rs280 million in the treasury,” he said. Gandapur said his administration exceeded its Annual Development Programme allocations and, following Khan’s vision, funded all constituencies. “In the end, I would like to say that we have a movement, a struggle and that struggle is not limited to Imran Khan.”
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