KARACHI:
The Senate elections have once again defied all expectations. With 7 votes rejected, Syed Yousaf Raza Gillani, who was the PDM candidate for chairman, suffered a bitter defeat. The whole country sat by their TV sets and watched as members of the PDM challenged the presiding officer’s ruling, rightly claiming that if it were not for the 7 rejected votes, Gillani would have been elected chairman of the Senate.
The government candidate, Sadiq Sanjrani, secured 48 votes as against Gillani’s 42 and was re-elected chairman. The catch? Well, the PDM claims that stamping on the name of the candidate on the ballot paper rather than in front of it should not be grounds for rejection of the votes. If the PDM manages to get its rejected votes accepted by the election tribunal, the result will be reversed. However, the PTI is unlikely to accept the new result lying down. While the party has already challenged Gillani’s victory as senator on the Islamabad seat against its candidate, Dr Hafeez Shaikh, it may also raise the case of the rejection of the 7 votes in the same contest.
Thus, the political chaos in the country is all set to grow. The two sides are best advised to bury the hatchet for the sake of the country.
Maira Pasha
Karachi
Published in The Express Tribune, March 14th, 2021.
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