Raza Rabbani

Senator Mian Raza Rabbani (Urdu: رضا ربانى; b. 23 July 1953), is a Pakistani nationalist–left-wing politician and a constitutional lawyer who serves as the Chairman of Senate of Pakistan since 12 March 2015; as chairman senate, he is the second in the line of succession to the President of Pakistan.

He served as the chairman of the Senate standing committee on National Security and Constitutional reforms, between 2008 till 2013 and was responsible for the drafting of Amendment XVIII which turned Pakistan from a semi-presidential to a parliamentary republic. He has been elected a senator for six times since 1993 from the Sindh Province. He was a close aide to Benazir Bhutto who had appointed him the party’s deputy secretary general in 1997 and leader of the opposition in the Senate in 2005.

Prior to his work in constitutional politics, he is also a leading nationalist–left-wing figure and has extensively written on the topic of socialism and left-wing ideas. His credentials led to his nomination to the Presidency by the Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) in 2013.