Senate elections: Process of filing nomination papers concludes

Election for 52 seats of the upper house of parliament are scheduled to be held on March 5.

QUETTA/ PESHAWAR/ LAHORE/ KARACHI:

As Friday was the last date of filing nomination papers for the upper house of parliament elections, candidates from all the provinces rushed to their respective offices of the Election Commission of Pakistan to submit their papers. The Senate polls are scheduled to be held on March 5.

Punjab

Twenty-three candidates submitted their nomination papers from Punjab for the 11 seats on Friday. Of these, 15 Senate aspirants submitted papers for seven general seats, four candidates filed papers for two seats of technocrats and four women presented their documents for the two seats reserved for their gender.

From ruling Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) 11 candidates filed their papers whereas Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP)’s Nadeem Afzal Chan submitted his nomination papers. Shaukat Mahmood of PPP filed his papers as a covering candidate while Sarwat Malik of PPP also filed her paper for women’s reserved seat.

No candidate from the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) filed nomination papers for Senate elections from Punjab as the PTI had decided to boycott the polls.

Sindh

While the PPP and the MQM are upbeat about winning the Senate elections unopposed, the Pakistan Muslim League-Functional (PML-F) is keeping its hopes alive for grabbing a general seat.

Twenty-eight candidates filed their nomination papers during the last two days for the 11 seats in Sindh. Thirteen of these were filed by candidates from the PPP, 12 by those belonging to the MQM, two by the PML-F hopefuls and one by the PML-N man.

PPP’s Shama Mithani, Sarfaraz Rajar and Dost Ali Jeesar, MQM’s Babar Ghauri, PML-N’s Zafar Ali Shah and PML-F’s Muhammad Bux Khaskheli filed their papers on Friday. Twenty-two others had submitted their forms on Thursday.

Balochistan

At least 42 candidates in Balochistan submitted their nomination papers on Friday for the 12 vacant seats of the upper house.

According to Election Commissioner Balochistan Sayed Sultan Bayazeed, as many as 19 candidates have submitted their nomination papers for eight general seats, six for two women’s seats, eight for single minority’s seat and nine for two ulema/technocrats seats.

PML-N’ Sardar Yaqoob Nasir, Nematullah Zehri, Irfan Aziz Kurd and Amir Afzal Khan Mandokhail have submitted their nomination papers.

Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa

Ammar Ahmad Khan, who had filed nomination papers for a technocrat seat one day ago, has received the blessings of Qaumi Watan Party (QWP) of Aftab Ahmad Khan Sherpao on a general seat. Whereas the QWP nominated candidate Abdul Malik Khan from Swabi was asked to file nomination papers on a technocrat seat.

Despite hectic efforts and wishes of its top leaders, parties from both treasury and opposition benches in Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa Assembly had failed in fielding consensus candidates.

Published in The Express Tribune, February 14^th, 2015.