The Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Assembly.
Credit: X/@pakpgov
Peshawar: Newly elected lawmakers of Pakistan's Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Assembly were sworn in on Wednesday, with jailed former prime minister Imran Khan's party in poll position to form the provincial government for the third consecutive time.
Outgoing Speaker Mushtaq Ghani administered the oath to the 113 provincial lawmakers elected to the Assembly on general seats, Geo News reported.
The Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Assembly has a total strength of 145 members, including 10 women and four minorities elected against reserved seats.
The allocation of the reserved seats has not been notified as the matter is currently being heard by the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP). Meanwhile, elections were postponed on two general seats in the province due to the candidates' deaths in constituencies.
The 71-year-old former cricketer-turned-politician Khan’s Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI)-backed independent candidates obtained a clear-cut majority in the provincial legislature with 90 seats to form the third consecutive solo government in the province, the report said.
PTI party leaders rioted in the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Assembly ahead of Wednesday's session, raising slogans of “mandate thief” against the Opposition, it said.
The PTI supremo Khan has nominated Ali Amin Gandapur as the party’s chief ministerial candidate and Babar Salim Swati as the Assembly speaker, the report said.
Once the oath was administered, Speaker Ghani announced that the election for the speaker and deputy speaker of the 145-member House would be held on Thursday.
"Polling for the speaker and deputy speaker election will be held tomorrow at 10 am," the report quoted Ghani as saying.
The polling for the provincial assembly was held on February 8, along with that for the National Assembly.
The PTI-backed independent candidates have joined the Sunni Ittehad Council (SIC) to receive its share of reserved seats for women and minorities in the national and provincial assemblies.
The SIC is an alliance of Islamic political and religious parties in the Muslim-majority country, which represents followers of the school of Sunni Islam.
The Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Assembly is the third provincial legislature to take oath after the February 8 general elections.
Last week, the provincial assemblies in Punjab and Sindh were sworn in.