ISLAMABAD, April 25: A PPP loyalist, Nadeem Afzal Chan, on Wednesday became chairman of the powerful Public Accounts Committee (PAC) of the National Assembly — a position that had been vacated in protest by Opposition Leader Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan of the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) five months back.

Mr Chan, an MNA from Sargodha, was elected unopposed as PAC chairman after his name was proposed by PML-Q’s Riaz Hussain Pirzada and endorsed by Noorul Haq Qadri of the PPP when the committee met at the Parliament House on Wednesday after remaining dysfunctional for almost seven months.

Chaudhry Nisar had been offered the position in the light of Charter of Democracy (CoD) that had been signed by two arch rivals — the late PPP chairperson Benazir Bhutto and PML-N chief Nawaz Sharif — in May 2006 in London when the top leaders of both their parties were living in forced exile during the military rule of Gen Pervez Musharraf.