51 senators to take oath today

Upper house of parliament to elect new chairman, deputy chairman

ISLAMABAD: Half of the newly-elected members of the upper house of parliament are scheduled to take oath today (Monday) before the 104-member Senate would elect its new chairman and deputy chairman the same day.

The 51 senators who would be swearing in today secured their respective seats of the upper house earlier on March 3.

After taking oath, the newly formed Senate would elect chairman and deputy chairman each with a majority vote of at least 53 members.

The oath-taking ceremony is administered by any incumbent senator who is nominated by the president of Pakistan.

As per constitutional and electoral provisions, half of the senators retire every three years.

Outgoing Chairman Senate Raza Rabbani and Deputy Chairman Abdul Ghafoor Haideri completed their term yesterday (March 11) and stood retired.

Rabbani belongs to Pakistan People's Party Parliamentarian and has been reelected as a senator while Haideri from Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam-Fazl would be retiring as a senator in March 2021.



The Senate comprises 66 general seats, 17 women, 17 technocrat and four minorities seats. Of these 104 seats, each province has 23 seats, including 14 general seats, four women seats, four technocrat seats and a non-Muslim seat. The Federally Administered Tribal Areas has all eight general seats in the Senate while Islamabad has four seats, including two general seats, a women seat and a technocrat seat.

On March 3, of the 51 Senate seats on which elections were held, 33 were general seats (seven general seats from each province, four from Fata and one from Islamabad), nine technocrat seats (two from each province and one from Islamabad), eight women seats (two from each province) and two non-Muslim seats (one each from Punjab and Sindh).

Elections were held on 12 seats each of Punjab and Sindh and 11 seats each of Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa and Balochistan, four seats of Fata and two seats of Islamabad.

The notifications of five new senators-elect were withheld by the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) on the orders of Supreme Court on account of cases pending against them in the top court for allegedly having dual-nationality.



Later, the apex court allowed the ECP to notify them as senators following which the five senators would be taking oath today and participate in the voting for chairman and deputy chairman of the Senate. The senators include three from the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (Haroon Akhtar, Nuzhat Sadiq, Sadia Abbasi), one from the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (Chaudhry Sarwar) and one independent senator-elect (Khuda Babar).

Barring Babar, who is elected from Balochistan, all the remaining four senators have been elected from Punjab. The dual-nationality cases against them are still pending in the Supreme Court.

In the recently held Senate polls, PML-N has won 15 seats, followed by PPP-P's 12 seats, PTI's six seats, JUI-F's two seats, National Party's two seats, Pashtoonkhwa Milli Awami Party's two seats, Jamat-e-Islami's one seat, Muttahida Qaumi Movement's one seat, Pakistan Muslim League-Functional's one seat and 10 independent candidates including six 'likeminded' independents from Balochistan and four from FATA.

Overall, PML-N has 33 seats in Senate, PPP-P 20 seats, PTI 12 seats, National Party five seats,  PkMAP five seats, MQM five seats,  JUI-F four seats, Awami National Party one seat, Balochistan National Party-Mengal one seat, JI one seat, PML-F one seat and 16 independent candidates.

Under the constitutional provisions, the prime minister cannot be elected from the Senate and has to be a member of the National Assembly. In the absence of president of Pakistan, the Senate chairman performs duties as acting president.