Unopposed Sarfaraz Bugti elected Balochistan chief minister with 41 votes

Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) candidate Sarfaraz Bugti was elected as the chief minister of the country’s largest province Balochistan on Saturday unopposed, reported 24NewsHD TV channel.

Requiring the votes of 33 members of the Balochistan Assembly whose total strength is 65, Bugti received 41 votes.

However, Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam (JUI-F) and National Party (NP) stayed away from the voting for election of the chief minister.

Later, Sarfaraz Bugti took oath of his office at a ceremony held at Governor’s House in Quetta. Governor Malik Abdul Wali Khan Kakar administered the oath to the newly-elected chief minister.

Bugti to deal with terrorism through talks

In his maiden speech after being elected as chief minister, Sarfaraz Bugti prioritized three primary challenges facing the province, adding his government would “provide a roadmap to navigate these”.

He identified those challenges as governance, climate change and terrorism. He said there was “no difference of opinion” on the difficult challenges the province had to overcome.

For governance, the CM said there was a need for the members of the government to accept and address the issue, in addition to working with the province’s bureaucracy. He said they would have to tackle the challenge of “ghost schools” to help provide education for the “province’s poor children who freeze in the cold and sweat in the heat”.

He said the province continued to suffer from the climate change crisis “despite having negligible responsibility in creating it”.

Bugti said he would employ the tool of dialogue, as par with the PPP’s policy, to deal with terrorism. However, he said that “writ of the state would not be compromised” when it came to terrorist attacks.

Bugti had served as the home and tribal affairs minister of the province and remained a senator from 2015 to 2021.

Last year in August, he took the oath as the country’s caretaker minister for interior before resigning in December to contest the general elections held on February 8 on PPP’s ticket.
“I am thankful to President @AAliZardari, Chairman @BBhuttoZardari, my party @PPP_Org, and the people of #DeraBugti who allowed me to serve the people of #Balochistan,” he said in a social media post. “May Allah guide me and help me to do justice with this heavy responsibility.”

Bugti submitted his nomination papers for the slot of chief minister on Friday after the PPP and Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) had jointly nominated him as their candidate for the leader of the house.

Interestingly, no other lawmaker filed nomination papers; making PPP candidate’s victory certain.

 Reporter: Isa Tarin