Jan Mohammad Jamali elected speaker Balochistan Assembly

Senior leader of Balochistan Awami Party (BAP) Mir Jan Muhammad Jamali was elected on Saturday as Speaker Balochistan Assembly, Aaj News reported.

He was elected unopposed as no other lawmaker submitted nomination papers for the position.

The seat fell vacant when former speaker Abdul Quddus Bizenjo stepped down from the post on October 28, before being elected unopposed as Chief Minister Balochistan the next day.

A statement from the Secretary Assembly said that the referendum did not take place because no other nomination was filed. Thus, Jan Muhammad Jamali was elected unopposed as the Assembly’s speaker.

However, a formal announcement of the new office-bearer will be made at the end of the ongoing assembly session convened under Governor Syed Zahoor Ahmed Agha’s chair.

Abdul Quddus Bizenjo elected new Balochistan CM

Jamali, a seasoned politician, served as Balochistan's chief minister in 1998. He also remained as the Senate deputy chairperson in 2006 when he was associated with the Pakistan Muslim League-Q (PML-Q) during General Pervez Musharraf's rule.

Later, he joined Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) and was elected as speaker of the provincial assembly in 2013.

Jamali was among dissident lawmakers of PML-N who toppled the party' Balochistan government and established a new party, BAP, shortly before the 2018 Senate elections. The new political party, in coalition with Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf (PTI), went on to form a government in Balochistan.