PESHAWAR: In a transfer agreed upon by each authorities and opposition leaders, Azam Khan, a former civil servant who was appointed because the caretaker chief minister of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, took the oath of workplace on Saturday.
Previous to administering the oath, Haji Ghulam Ali, the governor, had named Khan because the interim chief government, having been named the consensus candidate by the province’s authorities — of Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf (PTI) — and opposition — the Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam-Fazl (JUI-F) — within the wake of the dissolution of the provincial parliament.
The newly-appointed caretaker chief minister is not any stranger to public service, having held the workplace of federal secretary for the ministries of non secular affairs and petroleum prior to now. He’s additionally a extremely educated particular person, holding a Bar at Regulation diploma from Lincoln’s Inn in London.
Chatting with the press following the ceremony, Khan emphasised that making certain peaceable elections is his high precedence.
“It’s the Election Fee of Pakistan’s job to conduct peaceable polls and we’ll absolutely assist it,” he instructed Geo Information, including that he’ll take measures to deal with points comparable to legislation and order and inflation within the province.
As Pakistan prepares for common elections later this yr, there’s one particular person who’s pushing for an early vote — Imran Khan, the previous prime minister who was ousted from workplace in a parliamentary vote of no-confidence final April.
Whereas holding common elections is a major enterprise, Khan can also be calling for early elections in each provinces. This transfer comes with important logistical and monetary challenges for a authorities already stretched skinny by devastating floods final yr and depending on overseas help.