Senate strife: Amidst discord, PML-N announces candidates

Parties poised to prevent unopposed elections.

LAHORE:

The Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) has formally announced its candidates for the upcoming Senate elections scheduled for March 2.

According to an official announcement, the PML-N has awarded seven tickets. Senator Ishaq Dar was picked up for the technocrat seat, Begum Nuzhat Sadiq for reserved seats for women, Kamran Michael for the minorities’ seat, while Sardar Zaulfiqar Khosa, M Hamza, Rafiq Rajwana and Zafarullah Dhandhla have been selected to compete for general seats.

In addition, PML-N’s senior leader Ghulam Dastgeer Khan and former bureaucrat Saeed Mehdi have reportedly been asked to prepare as covering candidates.

Elections will take place for 54 seats – 50 vacated by retiring senators and four new seats for minorities. Provincial assemblies will be electing 12 senators each, Fata MNAs four, while the rest of the National Assembly will elect two for the federal capital quota.

The Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) had earlier released the election schedule, according to which candidates can file their nomination papers by February 14.

Provincial assemblies constitute the electoral college for the upper house of Parliament and polls under the current scenario are likely to give the Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) a majority in the Senate for the first time in the country’s history. There are indications that the PPP may have more than 40 members in the upper house, giving them an unprecedented edge.

Meanwhile, sources say differences amongst political parties are poised to reach a boiling point with nearly everyone endorsing the view to prevent the unopposed election of senators. There is also a chance of participation by independent candidates.

Three political parties have struck a deal over the distribution of Senate seats, but members are on the lookout for options as well. The PML-N will get seven seats, PPP four, while PML-Q will get only one seat in Punjab.

Expressing his concern over the choice of candidates, a senior PML-N legislator told The Express Tribune that, “Except for Khosa and Michael, the rest are virtually unknown and their names are being heard for the first time.”

PML-N MPA Advocate Chaudhry Javed said that though his party had directed its members not to propose candidates for the Senate elections, it was their right to ask who was representing them. Javed asserted that candidates should be selected through a consensus and said he would express his apprehensions to all MPAs on Monday.

PML-Q’s parliamentary leader in the Punjab Assembly, Chaudhry Zahiruddin Khan, said that from his 30-year experience in politics, he had learnt that members often show dissatisfaction over nominations, but accede to the party’s stance at the end.

On the other hand, PML-Q’s MPA Sardar Mohsin Khan Leghari obtained nomination papers despite his party’s disapproval and is now being approached by disgruntled members of all political parties.

Sources say Pakistan Muslim League-Junejo (PML-J) leader Hamid Nasir Chathha has proposed his name while a dozen candidates have been given him assurance to support him.

Chathha, who is a senior politician and a former speaker of the National Assembly, said he would support whosoever contested the elections to upset the formula agreed upon by major political parties in Punjab.

(with additional reporting by Qamar Zaman in Islamabad)

 

Published in The Express Tribune, February 13^th, 2012.