There was no crisis in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, caretaker Information Minister Murtaza Solangi said on Saturday after the death of the interim provincial chief minister Azam Khan earlier in the day.

“There is no crisis. The new KP CM will be appointed sooner rather than later,” he said in a post on X, erstwhile Twitter. “There is no room for any speculations.”

The caretaker KP chief minister passed away on Saturday. He was 89. According to the hospital administration, caretaker chief minister of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa was brought to the hospital last night due to cardiac arrest.

Khan took oath as the KP chief minister in January this year after the dissolution of the provincial assembly. He was a Barrister-at-Law from Lincoln’s Inn, London, and had earlier served in the interim setup in the past.

“The spirit of the constitution is crystal clear and shall be followed in the letter and the spirit of the constitutional scheme, after the sad demise of the chief minister of KP,” Solangi said.

He added that the governor, the chief secretary, and the entire provincial government should perform their duties accordingly.

According to legal expert Hafia Ihsan, the KP cabinet stands dissolved after the former bureaucrat’s death.

“His [Khan] cabinet will be dissolved immediately after his death. It is now the responsibility of the governor to invoke Article 224 of the Constitution,” Ihsan told Aaj News.

Article 224 empowers the president of Pakistan to appoint a caretaker prime minister and authorises governors to appoint interim CMs of provinces, he added.