Alvi notifies Shehbaz that Cheema remains in office.

President Arif Alvi has requested Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif to reconsider his advice to the former on the nomination of a new Punjab governor, claiming that Omar Cheema, who was ousted from the role on May 9, remains in office and that “there is no cause to propose a new appointment.”

According to a statement issued by the President’s Secretariat on Saturday, Alvi referred to an earlier communication to the Prime Minister, dated May 9, in which he rejected the PM’s advice to remove Cheema from office, citing Article 101 (2) of the Constitution, which states that “the Governor shall hold office during the pleasure of the President.”

Cheema, on the other hand, was dismissed hours later, with the Cabinet Division sending a late-night notification to the president indicating that he had ceased to hold office on the suggestion of the prime minister on two occasions.

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

The president also mentioned a letter written by Cheema to him on April 23 and a report dated May 4. Both documents, he said, highlighted the shift in loyalties during the April 16 election of the Punjab chief minister, in which Hamza Shehbaz received a majority vote 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, as well as a violation of Article 63-A of the Constitution.”

Article 63-A deals with the disqualification of politicians based on defection, and the Supreme Court recently ruled on a presidential reference that the votes of defecting lawmakers would not be tallied.