Khursheed Shah named opposition’s candidate for NA speaker

E-Paper | March 11, 2026

ISLAMABAD: The Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) on Saturday named Syed Khursheed Shah for the slot of National Assembly speaker. He will be the joint candidate of all the opposition parties.

PPP leader Mustafa Nawaz Khokhar said that party chairman Bilawal Bhutto-Zardari had approved Mr Shah’s candidature.

Khursheed Shah served as leader of the opposition in the outgoing National Assembly.

The grand opposition alliance had decided at a multi-party conference (MPC) on Thursday to field joint candidates for the offices of prime minister, NA speaker and deputy speaker against the Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf (PTI) nominees Briefing reporters about the decisions taken by the MPC, PPP leader Sherry Rehman said that her party would nominate its candidate for the office of speaker, the Muttahida Majlis-i-Amal (MMA) for deputy speaker and the Pakistan Muslim League (PML-N) would contest for the office of prime minister.

Sources told Dawn that PML-N president Shahbaz Sharif himself would contest against PTI chairman Imran Khan for the PM’s office.

Published in Dawn, August 5th, 2018

ELECTIONS 2018

Pakistan

Iftikhar A. Khan is an Islamabad-based reporter for Dawn with over three decades of experience in journalism. He covers the parliament, the Election Commission of Pakistan, and the Interior Ministry.

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faizy

Aug 05, 2018 08:49am

Doesn't PPP have any better qualified person... same old corrupt faces. Under his opposition leadership, PMLN got away with so much.

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Bill

Aug 05, 2018 09:34am

He won't have an easy time making all the opposition parties happy.

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NASAH(USA)

Aug 05, 2018 09:45am

Selection of Khurshid Shah augers well for the unity of the opposition

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Jalbani Baloch

Aug 05, 2018 10:10am

Wrong choice to select Mr. Khursheed Shah as a Leader of Opposition. In fact, during the PML-N Government, he has played a role of pacification maker and not opposition leader, whose main role is to question the government of the day and hold them accountable to the public. If the opposition parties have agreed to nominate PPP candidates, they must have looked for more suitable but aggressive opposition leader from the party, which could have given tough time to PTI Government to serve the masses pas per its given mandate. In this case, Ms. Nafia Shah would have been more suitable than Mr. Khursheed Shah.

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Saif Zulfiqar

Aug 05, 2018 12:22pm

End of PPP.

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Jiyalo Wadero

Aug 05, 2018 05:47pm

My congratulations to Mr.Syed Khursheed Shah who is a seasoned Politician.Even in his last tenure on the same position he maintained excellent relations with all Political Parties and has excellent reputation of getting along with Politicians.

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iqbal

Aug 05, 2018 08:01pm

Khursheed Shah has done nothing for the people & he should be out completely

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