It was announced on Tuesday that Sheikh Waqas Akram has been chosen by the Sunni Ittehad Council (SIC) to lead the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) of the National Assembly.
The news came out at the same time that SIC Chairman Sahibzada Hamid Raza sent a formal letter to the National Assembly Secretariat stating that the party supported Akram for the job.
In a message to the NA Secretariat, he said, “Shaikh Waqas Akram has been chosen as the nominee for the chairmanship of the PAC.”
In the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI), there had been a tug-of-war going on before the election. Sher Afzal Marwat was the first candidate that the party backed for the job. But Marwat’s loud resistance to the party leadership made things worse.
After a vote by the PTI’s political committee, Sheikh Waqas Akram got nine out of 19 votes, making him the clear favourite. Marwat got only seven. In addition to Aon Abbas, who did not vote, previous speaker Asad Qaiser and Marwat did not attend the meeting.
The split in the PTI got worse when Marwat got a “show-cause” letter from the party on May 11 for making “irresponsible” comments. The letter was sent by Omar Ayub Khan, Secretary General of the PTI. It asked Marwat to explain his comments within three days because they were seen as bad for the party’s reputation.
The notice made it clear that these kinds of comments were against the party’s rules and went against what its founder, Imran Khan, had told them to say.
Marwat was warned that failing to give a good reason could lead to more punishments. This showed how determined the party was to stick to its principles even though there was disagreement within it.
Not long before the show-cause letter was sent out, Marwat made it clear that he would not let a few people in the party make decisions for everyone else.
