Senate by-election to be held today

Shaukat Tarin emerges as strongest contender for vacant seat

ISLAMABAD:

The by-election for a general seat of the Senate will be held on Monday, wherein 145 lawmakers of the Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa Assembly will exercise their right to vote to elect a member for the upper house.

According to an Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) spokesperson, the polling for the by-election will be held in the old hall of the K-P Assembly. It will begin at 9am and will continue till 4pm. The commission has completed all preparations in this regard.

Provincial Election Commissioner Sharifullah will serve as the presiding officer while four other polling officers will assist him during the election.

Adviser to Prime Minister on Finance and Revenue Shaukat Tarin has emerged as the strongest contender for the slot, courtesy of the ruling Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf’s (PTI) numbers in the provincial assembly. If he is elected, he is expected to be appointed as the finance minister once again.

Read People squeezed by inflation face more pain from tax hikes

Awami National Party’s (ANP) Shaukat Jamal Ameerzada, Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam-Fazl’s (JUI-F) Zahir Shah and Pakistan People’s Party’s (PPP) Mohammad Saeed are the other candidates in the race for the Senate seat.

Tarin’s rival candidates had objected to his candidacy over the recent registration of his vote in K-P. However, the objections were later dismissed by the provincial election commissioner.

Tarin, who was appointed as the finance minister on April 17 earlier this year, did not fulfill the constitutional requirement of winning an election within six months of his appointment and was appointed as the finance adviser following the completion of his constitutional tenure on October 16. However, he currently retains the status of a federal minister.

The Senate seat in question was vacated by Muhammad Ayub Afridi, who tendered his resignation from the upper house in November upon Prime Minister Imran Khan’s wish. The premier subsequently appointed him as an adviser on overseas Pakistanis.

Soon after the senator’s resignation, speculations emerged that the ruling party had asked its lawmaker to step down to get the finance adviser elected to the upper house in order to restore his status as the finance minister.

It is worth mentioning here that PTI tried to get its previous finance minister Dr Abdul Hafeez Shaikh elected to the Senate from Islamabad. However, Shaikh lost the seat to former prime minister Yousaf Raza Gilani in the controversial Senate polls held in March.

Later, he was removed as the finance minister and the position was temporarily filled by Hammad Azhar, who was subsequently replaced by Tarin.