ECP distributes 45 NA reserved seats

Holds back notification on possible share of SIC

ISLAMABAD:

The Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) on Friday notified the allocation of 38 reserved seats for women and seven for minorities to political parties but held back its decision on the remaining 22 women’s seats and three minorities.

According to the notification, the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) was given 19 women’s seats and four minorities – making it the largest party in the National Assembly with 107 seats – followed by 12 women's seats and two minorities to the Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP).

The Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM) got four women’s seats and one minority. Other parties—Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam (JUI), the PML-Quaid, and the Istehkam-e-Pakistan Party (IPP) — were allocated one seat each.

The allocation has been made from the reserved quota for Punjab, Sindh, and Balochistan.

The ECP withheld the allocation of 12 seats for women from Punjab and 10 seats from Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa (K-P), besides three seats reserved for minorities, which would be announced later.

After the Feb 8 elections, the largest group of the newly elected lawmakers in the National Assembly belonged to the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) backed independents. However, as per the law, independents could not be allocated any of the reserved seats.

In order to be eligible for the reserved seats, the PTI decided that their lawmakers would join the Sunni Ittehad Council (SIC).

As per their strength in the National Assembly, the SIC could claim 22 women’s seats and three minorities’, however, the ECP’s decision on the SIC request remains pending.

The National Assembly has 60 reserved seats for women – 32 from Punjab, 14 Sindh, 10 K-P and four Balochistan – and 10 reserved seats for minorities.

Of these, the ECP notified the allocation of 20 seats of Punjab, 14 of Sindh, four of Balochistan and seven minorities.

In Punjab, the PML-N got 17 women’s seats, besides one seat each went to the PPP, PML-Quaid, and the IPP. From Sindh’s quota, the PPP got 10 and the MQM got four. From Balochistan’s share, two seats went to the PML-N and one each to the PPP and the JUI.

From the reserved seats for minorities, the PML-N got four, the PPP two and the MQM one. They are PML-N’s Kesho Mal, Dr Darshan, Nelson Azim and Isfandiar Bhandara; PPP’s Ramesh Lal and Naveed Aamir, and the MQM’s Mahan Manjiani.

Prominent lawmakers on women’s seats include Tahira Aurangzeb, Maryam Aurangzeb, Shaista Pervez, Nuzhat Sadiq, Masrat Asif Khawaja, Seema Mohiuddin, Shiza Khawaja, Tasmina Khurshid, Wajiha Qamar, Zeb Jafar, Kiran Imran, Anusha Rehman, Zahra Wadood Fatemi, Asia Naz Tanoli and Saba Sadiq of the PML-N, besides PPP's Hina Rabbani Khar, IPP's Munnaza Hasan, and PML-Q’s Farrukh Khan.

With the allocation of the reserved seats, the PML-N is the largest party in the National Assembly with 107 lawmakers. However, in case the ECP allocated the remaining seats to the SIC, it would become the largest party in the lower house of parliament with 113 lawmakers.

The PPP remains in the third place with 68 seats, and the MQM, with 22 seats, is in the fourth place. There are nine PTI-backed independents, who did not join any political party. The JUI’s strength is seven, followed by the PML-Q’s five, and the IPP’s four seats.

Besides, the Balochistan Awami Party (BAP), the National Party (NP), Majlis-e-Wahdatul Muslimeen (MWM), the PML-Zia, Pashtoonkhwa Milli Awami Party (PkMAP) and the Balochistan National Party (BNP) have one seat each.

Meanwhile, the ECP notified the success of independent candidate Iqbal Khan from NA-27, independent candidate Shahid Ahmed from NA-38, Maulana Misbahuddin of the JUI from NA-40, and Dawar Khan Kundi from NA-43.

The ECP also issued notification of six successful candidates of the Balochistan Assembly and one independent candidate Mahmood Qadir Khan, from PP-289 Dera Ghazi Khan. The ECP suspended the notification of independent candidate Arqam Khan from PP-68 Gujranwala.