ISLAMABAD – The recently elected Prime Minister, Imran Khan has taken the oath of his office as the 22nd Chief Executive of the country, on Saturday.
The oath-taking ceremony took place at the Aiwan-e-Sadar which started with the National Anthem and recitation of the Holy Quran.
President Mamnoon Hussain administered the oath to Imran Khan, who had donned a Black Sherwani for the event.
https://youtu.be/HJvtcbN4NqA
Khan fumbled a couple of times while he was regurgitating the script, apparently due to the Urdu terms. The crickter-turned-politician even smiled at the fumbles prompting attendees to smirk as well.
Notables from across the border including former Indian Cricketer Navjot Singh Sidhu, Imran Khan’s class fellow Vikram Mehta and others gathered at the place including:
- Chief of the Army Staff General Qamar Javed Bajwa, Air Chief Marshal Mujahid Khan, Naval Chief Admiral Zafar Mehmood Abbasi.
- Interim Prime Minister Nasirul Mulk, Speaker National Assembly Asad Qaiser, Deputy Speaker Qasim Suri, Chief Minister Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Mehmood Khan, Speaker KP Assembly Mushtaq Ghani, interim Punjab Chief Minister Hassan Askari, Shah Zain Bugti.
- The heroes of Pakistan’s 1992 World Cup team including Wasim Akram, Ramiz Raja, Javed Miandad, Moeed Khan.
- Media veterans including Mujeeb-ur-Rehman Shami, Naseem Zehra, Moeed Pirzada, Sabir Shakir, Salman Iqbal, Mian Aamir Mehmood, Yousaf Baig Mirza, Mansoor Afaq, Fahad Hussain, Rana Jawad, Muhammad Malick and Javed Sheikh.
- Peshawar Zalmi chief Javed Afridi, singer Salman Ahmed, Ibrar ul Haq, interim Foreign Minister Abdullah Hussain Haroon.
Khan had already directed the staff to keep the ceremony simple and serve the guests with tea and biscuits.
“The unnecessary burden should not be put on national exchequer,” Imran directed.
Missing Guests
Imran Khan’s sons, Suleiman and Qasim are not in Pakistan to attend the oath taking ceremony. Jemima Goldsmith, the former wife of Imran Khan announced on Twitter that Khan himself had barred his sons to be at the event.
https://twitter.com/Jemima_Khan/status/1030493973184491520
Imran Elected As 22nd PM Of Pakistan
Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf (PTI) Chairman Imran Khan was elected Pakistan’s 22nd prime minister on Friday, marking the pinnacle of his 22-year-long political career.
Khan clinched victory with 176 seats while his opponent, PML-N President Shahbaz Sharif, secured 96 votes in the polling that took place in the National Assembly on Friday.
As the newly elected speaker of the assembly, Asad Qaiser, announced the results, the House erupted with chants of “na manzoor” [unacceptable] and “Wazir-i-Azam Nawaz Sharif” [PM Nawaz Sharif]. The protests by PML-N leaders continued nearly all the way through the session despite the speaker’s attempts at restoring order in the House.
Prime Minister-elect Imran Khan, in his first speech following his victory, promised: “the change that this nation is starving for”.
“We have to have strict accountability in this country; the people who looted this country, I promise that I will work against them,” he asserted.
“I did not climb on any dictator’s shoulders; I reached this place after struggling for 22 years. Only one leader struggled more than me, and that was my hero, Jinnah. Twice every month I will answer to the people during the question-answer session in the assembly.”
https://en.dailypakistan.com.pk/headline/leader-of-the-house-national-assembly-to-elect-new-prime-minister-of-pakistan-today/
“The money that was laundered, I will bring it back — the money that should have gone towards health, education, and water, went into people’s pockets,” said a charged Khan, moving on to address allegations of election rigging.
The former cricketer was tipped as the ‘PM-in-waiting’ soon after the July 25 polls in which PTI won more seats than other political parties.
