Senate may get new opposition leader today | The Express Tribune

ISLAMABAD:

MWM chief Allama Raja Nasir Abbas is expected to be officially notified as the Senate opposition leader Tuesday (today), PTI Senator Ali Zafar said on Monday. The position has remained vacant for the past five months.

Speaking to the media in the Parliament House, Senator Zafar said he had submitted a letter to Senate Chairman Yousuf Raza Gilani, seeking the appointment of Abbas to the position.

According to the senator, Gilani had accepted the opposition’s demand and said an announcement about Abbas’s appointment would also be made in the House.

Zafar later also wrote a post on X, stating that he had a meeting with the Senate chairman regarding the appointment of the opposition leader.

“[The] chairman informed me that he has approved the appointment and directed the secretariat to issue a formal notification,” Zafar said. He welcomed the decision, saying that the party would be able to convey its perspective in the Senate more effectively.

The opposition leader’s posts in the Senate and the National Assembly fell vacant in August 2025, following the disqualification of Shibli Faraz and Omar Ayub, who respectively served as opposition leaders in the upper and lower houses of parliament.

An ATC had found the politicians guilty in a May 9, 2023 rioting case. Later, the Election Commission of Pakistan had disqualified them as lawmakers.

The PTI had then nominated Abbas as its candidate for the opposition leader’s position in the Senate and Pashtoonkhwa Milli Awami Party chief Mahmood Khan Achakzai to fill the NA slot.

After a months-long delay, Achakzai was notified as the NA opposition leader last week.

In his letter to Gilani, Senator Zafar recalled that the PTI had “duly nominated the honourable Senator Mr Raja Nasir Abbas for the post of the leader of the opposition in the Senate of Pakistan”.

“The continued non-appointment of the leader of the opposition is not only inconsistent with the Rules of Procedure and Conduct of Business in the Senate, 2012, but also runs contrary to well-established democratic traditions and parliamentary conventions.”

It added that the “opposition is an indispensable pillar of any democratic system. A house without a formally recognised leader of the opposition remains institutionally incomplete, and its ability to perform its constitutional role of oversight, accountability, and meaningful debate is seriously undermined”.

“Parliamentary democracy rests upon the balance between the treasury and the opposition benches.

“Denial or delay in recognising the duly nominated leader of the opposition weakens democratic norms, erodes parliamentary decorum, and sets an undesirable precedent inconsistent with constitutional values and democratic practice.

“It is, therefore, once again respectfully requested that, in accordance with Rule 16(3) of the Rules of Procedure and Conduct of Business in the Senate, 2012, Senator Raja Nasir Abbas may kindly be appointed as leader of the opposition in the Senate of Pakistan at the earliest, in the larger interest of parliamentary democracy and the proper functioning of this august House,” it said.