Pakistan: Senate To Elect New Chairman, Deputy Chairman Today

Islamabad [Pakistan]: The upper house of the Pakistan Parliament will convene on Tuesday to swear in newly elected members and elect the chairman and deputy chairman, reported ARY News.

President Asif Ali Zardari has convened the Senate session.

Notably, the session comes at a time when the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Senate elections continued to remain pending.

Earlier, Ishaq Dar, who is presently the foreign minister of Pakistan, was named by the president to serve as the presiding officer of the upper house of Parliament's first session starting at 9 am Tuesday.

Yousuf Raza Gilani of the Pakistan People's Party (PPP) has been nominated by the ruling alliance to be the Senate chairman.

In the meantime, the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) has decided to abstain from Tuesday's Senate chairman and deputy chairman elections, reported ARY News.

The decision was taken in the PTI's core committee meeting on Monday where the party urged for delaying the election owing to the postponement of the Senate election in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa.

The PTI, in a statement, said that the upper house of the parliament was incomplete without the election of Senators from the KP, the ARY News reported.