QUETTA: Outgoing Speaker of the Balochistan Assembly Rahila Hameed Khan Durrani administered oath to newly elected members of the provincial legislature on Monday.
Ms Durrani presided over the first session of the newly elected assembly in the provincial capital and administered the oath to MPAs-elect.
After the oath-taking, the session was postponed till August 15 when the election of speaker and deputy speaker of the legislature will be held.
The Balochistan-based six-party alliance has nominated Balochistan Awami Party (BAP) president Jam Kamal Khan for the position of chief minister of the province.
The allied parties — BAP, Awami National Party (ANP), Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf (PTI), Hazara Democratic Party (HDP), Balochistan National Party (BNP-Awami) and Jamhoori Watan Party (JWP) — have unanimously picked Khan for the slot.
The number of BAP legislators with inclusion of the independent candidates who joined the party rose to 18 in the Balochistan Assembly with total strength of 51 general assembly seats excluding reserved seats.
There has been a split mandate in Balochistan following the July 25 poll results since no single political party in the province was able to secure an overwhelming majority in the province.
According to the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) statistics, the Muttahida Majlis-e-Amal (MMA) has got eight seats in the provincial legislature, the Balochistan National Party (Mengal) won seven seats and Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf (PTI) got five seats in the province.
The BNP-M has entered in an alliance with the PTI in Centre. BNP chief Akhtar Mengal in a press talk has said that his party and the MMA are allies in Balochistan and would take a joint decision whether they would join the government or sit on the opposition benches.
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