ISLAMABAD, August 18, 2018: The Provincial Assembly of Balochistan held the Chief Minister’s election as well as adopted a resolution against a blasphemous cartoon contest in Netherlands during the session’s last sitting on Saturday, observes Free and Fair Election Network (FAFEN) in Daily Factsheet.
Following are key observations of the proceedings during third and last sitting of the first session:
Members’ Participation
- The Assembly met for seven hours and 31 minutes.
- The sitting started at 1139 hours against the scheduled time of 1100 hours.
- The Speaker presided over the proceedings for six hours and 40 minutes hours while rest of the proceedings were chaired by the Deputy Speaker.
- As many as 47 (72% of the total membership) members were present at the outset and 21 (32%) at the adjournment of the sitting.
- As many as 59 lawmakers voted in the election of the Chief Minister.
- Only one minority lawmaker was present.
Election of the Chief Minister
- The House elected BAP’s Jam Kamal Khan as the Chief Minister Balochistan with 39 lawmakers voting for him while MMAP’s candidate got 20 votes. The voting was held through division in the galleries.
Output
- The House unanimously adopted a joint resolution condemning a blasphemous cartoon contest in Netherlands and demanding the government to raise the matter at international forums. A lawmaker debated the resolution for 16 minute.
Order and Institutionalization
- As many as 32 lawmakers made speeches following the election of the Chief Minister consuming six hours and 39 minutes of the proceedings.
- The lawmakers raised two Points of Order consuming 14 minutes of the proceedings.
- A PkMAP lawmaker staged a walkout from the proceedings for 21 minutes against being disallowed to raise a matter in the House.
- The session was prorogued sine die.
Transparency
- ‘Orders of the Day’ was available to the legislators, observers and others.
- Attendance of Members was not made public.
This daily factsheet is based on direct observation of the Balochistan Assembly proceedings conducted by Center for Peace and Development (CPD) – a member organization of FAFEN. Errors and omissions are excepted.