QUETTA: The Khyber Pakhtunkhwa provincial assembly on Thursday elected lawmakers backed by former prime minister Imran Khan as the new speaker and deputy speaker of the provincial legislature, a day after it held its first session following general elections earlier this month. 

Independent candidates backed by Khan’s Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) party swept provincial polls in Feb. 8 elections, bagging over 90 of 111 general seats on which voting was held. Since independent candidates cannot form a government, PTI loyalists have joined the Sunni Ittehad Council (SIC) to make their government in the province for a third consecutive term.

Khan’s PTI previously ruled the province from 2013 to 2023. 

Babar Saleem Swati, who became the custodian of the house, contested as the SIC candidate for the post.

“PTI’s Babar Saleem Swati has been elected speaker [KP] assembly by getting 89 votes,” Khan’s party said on X. 

Another Khan-backed candidate, Suraiya Bibi, was elected deputy speaker, the first woman ever elected to the post in KP. 

Separately, in Balochistan province, PML-N’s Abdul Khaliq Achakzai was elected as speaker and Ghazala Gola Begum from the PPP as deputy speaker of the legislature in the southwestern province. 

Candidates backed by Khan won the most National Assembly seats, 93, in the elections but the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) and Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) have agreed to an alliance to form a coalition government. The Sunni Ittehad Council party backed by Khan alleges that the election was rigged against them and has called for an audit of the polls. 

No single party won a majority.