PPP took full advantage of rifts, issues in PTI for Senate elections

PTI incurred major loss in the general seats

As the most important phase of the Senate elections come to an end, it seems as if all speculations related to Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf’s (PTI) fate related to Senate outcomes have come true.

Political maneuvering was reported in the party which helped Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) win additional seats in the general and women categories. The government’s offer for a joint candidate worked well for PPP since the opposition had asked the government to announce five instead of six candidates, helping it emerge strongly for the six remaining seats.



However, PTI leaders not only stuck with six candidates but also made adjustments to keep Malauna Samiul Haq for the technocrat seat and Qaumi Watan Party’s Aneesa Zaib Tahirkheli for the women seat. The strategy didn't work well, and so the party failed.

PTI incurred a major loss in the general seat as its candidate Khayal Zaman failed to bag sufficient votes. The vote count for the three winning candidates of PTI also presents a perspective to ponder over. Faisal Javed, who had important ministers and secretaries on his panel, collected a total of 18 votes. On the other side, Ayub Afridi and Fida Muhammad did not make it, with both bagging ten votes as the first preference choice.

Khayal Zaman was subjected to a similar fate, a meager count of ten votes also caused him defeat. The outcomes clearly hint signs of worry for PTI, which is now tasting tendencies of rebellion and discomfort that have been brewing amongst its members for quite some time now.

Until now, the party had been struggling really hard to maintain its delicate, poorly-knit bonds. Inner strife and non-conformist tendencies within the party have only benefited the PPP and the Jamiat Ulema-e Islam-Functional (JUI-F), with the former winning up two seats in the general category while Faisal Sakhi Butt could not succeed despite having earned nine votes.

Despite failing to gather any benefits from other political parties, Sakhi was still in a stronger position, considering the number of votes candidates of other parties got. Since PPP had a coalition with JUI-F they had to get 22 votes on women seats. Rubina Khalid fetches extra 12 votes and gets 34 votes, and gets successful on 2nd and 3rd priority votes.

The JUI-F also availed benefits of the inter-party maneuvers. In fact, because of this condition, the JUI-F itself faced splits within the party because the party either could not play well effectively on technical basis or due to some important reason it didn’t attempt to play. However, the party needs to investigate and look for the reasons that resulted in defeat of Maulana Naseeb Khan, who is also a provincial Amir.



The Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) from the first day had focused on winning the two seats and they also succeeded in getting the desired results. In the past Senate polls, the PML-N's Lieutenant General (retd) Salahuddin Tirmizi won the general seat by conspiring against PTI. They also helped Javed Abbasi win the technocrat seat.

This time, despite settlement and initial communications with the PTI, the PML-N united with Jamaat-e-Islami Pakistan (JI) and Awami National Party (ANP) on parting ways with the PTI. As a result, they made their technocrat candidate Dilawar Khan wins the seat.