After much drama over the resignation and election of the provincial chief executive, Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI)-backed lawmaker Sohail Khan Afridi has finally been sworn in as the chief minister of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa.
Afridi replaces his party colleague, Ali Amin Gandapur, as the provincial chief executive after the latter was ordered to step down amid reports of worsening law and order and governance issues.
Governor Kundi, who had earlier rejected Gandapur’s resignation, was directed by the Peshawar High Court to administer the oath to the chief minister-elect at 4pm today. The court ruled that if he failed to do so, KP Assembly Speaker Babar Saleem Swati would perform the duty instead.
On October 13, PTI’s Afridi was elected as the new chief executive of the province despite the opposition’s boycott of the process.
Afridi secured 90 votes, whereas Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam-Fazl’s (JUI-F) Maulana Lutfur Rehman, Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz’s (PML-N) Sardar Shahjehan Yousaf, and Pakistan People’s Party’s (PPP) Arbab Zarak Khan got no votes at all as their members staged a walkout from the session.
Gandapur stepped down from the key office on the directives of incarcerated PTI founder Imran Khan on October 8. The PTI founder and former prime minister nominated Afridi as the new chief minister of KP, replacing his firebrand party loyalist.
Afridi — a young PTI leader — hails from Bara tehsil of Khyber district and last held the portfolio of provincial minister for higher education. He is regarded among the party’s most ideological and grassroots-based workers, having been associated with PTI since his student years.
