K-P's Senate expedition

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The nail-biting and politically-engineered voting process in Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa Assembly, on Monday, led to the completion of the Senate of Pakistan after more than 17 months. Though a constitutional benchmark was crossed, the expedition has given birth to several unanswered questions over its legal locus standi and credibility. That too, nonetheless, was attained following a much-delayed redistribution of reserved seats in the wake of a verdict of the Supreme Court's Constitutional Bench that doled out seats to other parties after effectively taking them away from the PTI.

Yet, the fact that beleaguered Tehrik-e-Insaf, despite constituting a two-thirds majority in the provincial assembly, went on for a seat-adjustment with the opposition and lost, at least, five seats has raised eyebrows. Six PTI candidates have returned to the Senate apparently under a deal. Many inside the PTI itself say the 'compromise' with the treasury, allegedly signed off by CM Gandapur, is tantamount to accepting the 'legality' of reserved seats decision, rendering a blow to the party's stance since Feb 8 elections.

The PTI is technically on the losing side as it could not keep its house in order, and what initially shaped up to be a three-way contest among the PTI, its 'dissidents' (i.e. those loyal to the incarcerated leader) and opposition lawmakers turned out to be two-way match-fixing. The PTI's 'disgruntled' faction, which wanted to go through the electoral-college process, was somehow silenced. With the ruling dispensation at the Federation having 54 votes in the 96-member Senate, it is still 10 short of a two-thirds majority.

The outcome too is very interesting as PTI's Murad Saeed, who has long been in wilderness, made it to the upper house and is considered to be a shot in the arm for supporters who rally for former PM Imran Khan. The point of consolation, however, is that a new working relationship seems to be emerging between the PTI and the coalition parties, and it remains to be seen how it impacts in scaling down the politics temperature in terms of ushering in stability.