The National Assembly is the lower house of the bicameral Parliament of Pakistan.
Governance and structure
The Speaker of the House presides over the Assembly, and acts as the president of the country if both the President and the Chairman of the Senate are not present. The leader of the largest party in the Assembly often serves as the Prime Minister of Pakistan.
Currently, Dr. Fahmida Mirza of Pakistan Peoples Party is serving as Speaker and Faisal Kareem Kundi as Deputy Speaker of the National Assembly of Pakistan and Nisar Ali Khan of Pakistan Muslim League (N) is serving as an opposition leader of the house.
Composition and elections
The composition of the National Assembly is specified in Article 51 of the Constitution of Pakistan. There are a total of 342 seats in the National Assembly. Of these, 272 are filled by direct elections. In addition, the Pakistani Constitution reserves 10 seats for religious minorities and 60 seats for women, to be filled by proportional representation among parties with more than 5% of the vote. As of 2006, there are 72 women members in the Assembly.
Members of the National Assembly are elected by the people in competitive multi-party elections, to be held at most five years apart. According to Article 62 of the Constitution, candidates must be citizens of Pakistan and not less than eighteen years of age.
