The Punjab governor’s impasse continues, as Alvi informs Shehbaz that Cheema is still in office.

The Punjab governor’s impasse continues, as Alvi informs Shehbaz that Cheema is still in office.
President Arif Alvi has requested Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif to rethink his advise to him on the appointment of a new Punjab governor, claiming that Omar Cheema, who was ousted from the position on May 9, remains in office and that “there is no cause to suggest a new appointment.”

Alvi responded to a previous message to the prime minister, dated May 9, in which he rejected the PM’s suggestion to remove Cheema from office, noting that “the Governor will hold office until the pleasure of the President,” as stipulated by Article 101 (2) of the Constitution.

Cheema was dismissed from office hours later, with the Cabinet Division sending the president two late-night notifications saying that he had ceased to hold office on the recommendation of the prime minister.

The president restated this view in his statement today, saying that “the current circumstances dictated that the incumbent governor continue to retain that office.”

The president also included a letter from Cheema dated April 23 and a report dated May 4 in his remarks. Both documents, he said, highlighted the shift in loyalties during the Punjab chief minister’s election on April 16 — in which Hamza Shehbaz won a majority of votes with the support of 25 dissident PTI lawmakers — and the “cobbling of the majority by illegal means,” which had resulted in “serious governance issues in the province” and “violated Article 63-A of the Constitution.”

Article 63-A deals with parliamentarians being disqualified for defection, and the Supreme Court recently ruled that the votes of defecting members would not be included in a presidential reference.

The verdict, according to President Alvi, “vindicated” the “principled position of the governor (Cheema).”

He went on to say that Cheema’s position was strengthened by the Election Commission of Pakistan’s (ECP) ruling on May 20, which termed the defection and shifting allegiance of 25 PTI MPs during the April 16 election the “worst form of betraying the voters and party’s ideology.”

The ECP had deposed the lawmakers based on their defection.

In his communication to the prime minister, the president emphasised this as well.

“In light of the foregoing circumstances, the president requested that the Prime Minister rethink his advise on the appointment of a new governor of Punjab in line with Article 48 (1) of the Constitution,” according to a statement from the President Secretariat.