By Xinhua
Islamabad : Pakistani Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gilani Saturday took vote of confidence from the parliament and even opposition groups declared support to him.
The major opposition group Pakistan Muslim League-Q (PML-Q) and other small groups also announced support to Gilani as the confidence vote was tabled by the speaker of the National Assembly for the house consent.
The 342-seat lower house of the parliament was convened for a third brief session within 13 days to give the new prime minister a vote of more than two-third majority as it did for his election as leader of the house on Monday.
Naveed Qamar of the ruling Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) tabled the resolution for confidence vote for the new prime minister.
National Assembly Speaker Fahmida Mirza announced the names of other movers of the confidence resolution.
The house passed the resolution unanimously, she announced.
Gilani briefly spoke in the National Assembly and requested the opposition members to support him in the confidence vote for the sake of national unity.
PML-Q member Faisal Saleh Hayat announced support from the opposition to Gilani and said that the opposition would support all positive actions of the government, adding that it was the consensus of the opposition parties to support the prime minister in the confidence vote.
Members from other opposition groups also announced support to Gilani in the trust vote.
The confidence vote comes only four days after Gilani was formally inducted into office with his oath-taking on Tuesday as the first prime minister of the Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) after 12 years, following two sessions of the newly elected National Assembly for its own oath-taking and the election of its speaker and deputy speaker on March 17 and 19, respectively, and for the prime minister’s election on March 24.
Pakistan’s constitution makes it obligatory for a prime minister to obtain a vote of confidence from the National Assembly within 60 days of oath-taking, but most holders of the office in Pakistan’s recent parliamentary history have done it within a few days of their induction to preclude any uncertainty about the future of a coalition.
However, it was the first time under the 1973 constitution that a prime minister sought a confidence vote without a cabinet.
The cabinet-formation case has been held up mainly by differences between the coalition partners, the PPP and the Pakistan Muslim League-N (PML-N) over sharing some key ministries though the group, also including the Awami National Party and the Jamiat Ulema-i-Islam (Fazl), had agreed quite early to get the number of ministries in proportion to the National Assembly seats they won in the Feb. 18 election.