ISLAMABAD: Pakistan’s biggest province of over 120 million people finally got its chief executive on Saturday after Hamza Shehbaz Sharif took oath of the office as 21st Chief Minister despite stiff resistance by Governor Omar Sarfraz Cheema and Speaker of the Punjab Assembly Chaudhry Pervaiz Elahi.
National Assembly Speaker Raja Pervez Ashraf administered the oath to Hamza Shehbaz on Lahore High Court’s (LHC) order. The oath-taking ceremony took place in the Governor’s House just hours after Governor Omar Sarfraz Cheema stirred up another controversy by rejecting former Chief Minister Usman Buzdar’s March 28 resignation declaring it was “not constitutionally valid.”
"Today a month-long political crisis in Punjab has come to an end," the 47-year-old Sharif told reporters after he was sworn in.
"I will seek guidance from the prime minister Shehbaz Sharif and will take coalition partners into confidence."
An election marked by controversies
Hamza’s election was marked by controversies and Governor Cheema as well as Speaker of the Punjab Assembly Pervaiz Elahi kept posing hurdles one after the other to delay the oath-taking ceremony.
However, Hamza Shehbaz and his voters waited patiently till the Lahore High Court on Friday directed the National Assembly’s Speaker to administer the oath to the new chief executive of the province.
On Friday Justice Jawad Hassan, who passed the order on a petition filed for the third time by the CM-elect seeking implementation of the two previous court orders on his petitions had directed the NA speaker to administer the oath to Hamza Shehbaz on Saturday at 11:30am.
Justice Hassan observed that both the decisions of the court despite having binding effect were ignored deliberately by the President of Pakistan as well as the Governor of the Punjab.
The governor through his conduct has also made himself impracticable for the oath to be made before him, the judge had further held.
In the April 22 order, LHC Chief Justice Mohammad Ameer Bhatti had asked President Dr Arif Alvi to resolve the matter urgently by nominating any person in terms of Article 104 of the Constitution to administer the oath, but the president failed to comply with the order.
On April 27 too, the court had advised Punjab Governor Omar Sarfraz Cheema to ensure administration of oath to the newly elected chief minister either himself or through his nominee by April 28, but that order also remained unimplemented.
Governor makes last-ditch effort to delay oath-taking
Governor Omar Cheema even after LHC’s Friday order made an unprecedented move by ‘restoring’ former Chief Minister Usman Buzdar and cabinet and this he did when Hamza was arriving at the Governor’s House for the oath-taking ceremony.
Usman Buzdar’s resignation was not constitutionally valid therefore I am restoring him as chief minister of the province, Cheema said in a statement.
Later, while the ceremony was underway, Governor Cheema made another move by urging the Chief Justice to take notice of the ‘forced occupation’ of the Governor House by the Punjab police. He also said the “drama of a fake chief minister’s oath” was being performed in an “unconstitutional” manner.
Hamza notified, Buzdar denotified
Immediately after the oath-taking ceremony of Hamza Shehbaz the Punjab Chief Secretary (CS) notified that Hamza had assumed the charge of the chief minister’s office while in a separate notification the CS notified that Buzdar had ceased to hold the CM office.
The notification stated, “Consequent upon the judgement of the Lahore High Court under writ peti-tion no. 27186 of 2022, Mr Muhammad Hamza Shahbaz Sharif has taken the oath of the office of the chief ministry of Punjab before speaker, National Assembly on 30th day of April, 2022.”
Buzdar’s ‘de-notification’ on the other hand, states, “Consequent upon assumption of office of chief minister of Punjab by Mr Muhammad Hamza Shahbaz Sharif on 30th April, 2022, Mr Usman Ahmed Khan Buzdar, chief minister of Punjab under provision of Article 133 of the Constitution of Islamic Republic of Pakistan, 1973, has ceased to hold office with immediate effect,” the notification read.
