Rewriting electoral process: Current mode of Senate election wins favour

Tahir Mashhadi says Raza Rabbani brought a tangible change

ISLAMABAD: A considerable majority in the upper house voted on Thursday in favor of strengthening the existing system.

Ironically, accusations of horse-trading had marred the previous Senate elections and politicians had underlined the need for rewriting the process of elections.

The upper house transformed into a committee and discussed mode of elections for Senate members, besides debating pros and cons of a single transferable voting system.



During the discussion, some, including Chairman Raza Rabbani, complained against limited powers of the Senate.

But Col (retd) Tahir Hussain Mashhadi of the MQM poured cold water on his colleagues’ ambitions when he said: “We are legislators, but we wanted to be councillors to do things such as paving streets.”

He said that until recently, when Raza Rabbani took over as chairman, “we were a debating club with no responsibility, but you [Rabbani] brought a tangible change”.

“It is a senator who makes this house either strong or weak,” he added.

On the mode of elections, he said that there was no denial that money was used in elections and to curb this practice, the matter should be investigated by the Senate committee on ethics and if anyone was found guilty, he or she should be removed.

About introducing ‘show of hands’, the MQM lawmaker said in that case, there was no need to hold elections.

Senator Sardar Azam Musakhel and Dr Jehanzeb Jamaldini, both from Balochistan and Dr Karim Khawaja of the PPP proposed direct elections for Senators.

However, the idea was opposed by other members, including Barrister Saif of MQM, Taj Haider and Osman Saifullah Khan, Khalida Parveen of PPP, Ghous Niazi, Nuzhat Sadiq, Nihal Hashmi, Chaudhry Tanveer, Lt-Gen (retd) Abdul Qayyum and Najma Hameed of PML-N, Mir Kabeer of the National Party (NP).

Lawmakers opposing direct elections contended that contesting elections of a constituency was a costly affair and the cost would increase manifold when a candidate for Senate would be having entire province as his constituency.

Mohisn Aziz of the PTI did not deviate from the policy of his party and suggested that voting should take place through ‘show of hands’, instead of secret ballot.

A couple of Senators called for amending the rules so that the Prime Minister could also be elected from the upper house.  After the debate ended, in which 39 senators took part, Rabbani announced that Senate secretariat would prepare a draft of recommendations to be completed after third and final hearing on the matter to be held on Tuesday (May 17).

Published in The Express Tribune, May 13^th, 2016.