Justice (r) Mir Hazar Khan Khoso sworn in as caretaker PM

ISLAMABAD: Justice (retd) Mir Hazar Khan Khoso has been sworn in as the sixth caretaker prime minister of Pakistan during a ceremony held at the President House here on Monday.

The oath was administered by President Asif Ali Zardari.

The ceremony was attended by former Prime Minister Raja Pervez Ashraf and his cabinet members, however no representative from the PML-N, PML-Q, MQM, PTI and PML-F were in attendance.

Justice (retd) Khoso was given a guard of honour upon his arrival at the Prime Minister House following the oath taking ceremony.

After being appointed as caretaker prime minister, Justice (retd) Khoso said he would quit if he failed to hold elections on time.

The Election Commission of Pakistan selected Justice (retd) Mir Hazar Khan Khoso from Balochistan to serve as the caretaker prime minister.

On its second day (last day) of deliberations, the Election Commission gave its verdict in favour of the government nominee Justice (retd) Mir Hazar Khan Khoso.

The decision was taken by majority votes as member from Punjab Justice (retd) Riaz Kiyani differing from the decision wrote a note of dissent on the order.

The ECP session was chaired by the Chief Election Commissioner Fakhruddin G. Ebrahim while all four members representing the four provinces were in attendance.

The task of selecting the caretaker prime minister was assigned to the Election Commission after Prime Minister Raja Pervez Ashraf and Opposition Leader in the National Assembly Chaudhry Nisar and later an eight-member parliamentary committee failed in reaching a consensus.

Prime minister and opposition leader and the parliamentary committee had three days each to select a caretaker prime minister from the list that includes names of Dr Ishrat Hussain, Justice (retd) Mir Hazar Khan Khoso, Justice (retd) Nasir Aslam Zahid and Rasool Bux Paleejo.

The Election Commission of Pakistan which had two days to decide the matter could not select the caretaker prime minister on the first day as its member from Sindh Roshan Esani could not reach Islamabad where the meeting of the electoral body was being held.