All eyes on Senate elections now

With a new president and prime minister now heading the federation, all attention has turned towards the upcoming Senate elections, with forty-eight members set to be elected in the first week of April.

As per details provided by the Senate Secretariat, among the members retiring this week, 12 are from Sindh, 11 are from Punjab, 10 members are from Balochistan and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (K-P), each; 4 members are from the former federally administered tribal areas (FATA), and 2 are from the federal capital, Islamabad.

It is pertinent to mention that the 4 members of erstwhile FATA will be the last members who were elected on the quota for FATA and now after the 25th Amendment to the Constitution, FATA will not have separate seats in the Senate. Therefore, the Senate will now consist of 96 members, in which each province is represented equally with 23 seats, while 4 seats are for Islamabad.

Be that as it may, both the Sindh and Punjab Assemblies will elect 12 Senators each, Balochistan and K-P will elect 11 each, and 2 will be elected from Islamabad. Since the Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) enjoys a majority in the Sindh Assembly, followed by the Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM), which is the second largest party in the Sindh Assembly, it is expected that PPP will be able to get more seats than the MQM. As for the Punjab Assembly, where the PML-N and its coalition partners have 220 votes out of 371, it is expected that the 12 Senate slots up for grabs will be comfortably filled by the PML-N and its partners. In the Balochistan Assembly, the PPP and the PML-N have 37 out of the 62 provincial seats, therefore it is likely that they will get a majority of the Senate seats allocated to the province.

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However, it is expected that the results of the upper house of parliament may be impacted due to differences between the two parties with regard to the distribution of portfolios amongst the lawmakers in Balochistan. Whereas, in the K-P Assembly, where the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf backed and Sunni Ittehad Council (SIC) associated members have a clear majority, the Senate election seems quite a one-sided affair with regard to the province’s Senate seats.

Commenting on the upcoming Senate elections, Ahmed Bilal Mehboob, President of the Pakistan Institute of the Legislative Development and Transparency (PILDAT), was of the view that it was good for the country that the electoral processes for the federal and provincial assemblies and Senate were finally being completed.

However, Munir Saqi, a senior parliamentary reporter, opined that the delay in the Senate elections, due to the general elections and presidential elections being held simultaneously, was not constitutionally appropriate and should have been avoided.

Nevertheless, Senator Mushtaq Ahmad Khan, while talking to The Express Tribune hoped that new members of the Senate was a welcome development. “I am not sure how the new faces will represent the people of this country but one can hope that they do their best to raise their voice for the fundamental rights of the populace.”