Following the unopposed election of nine Senate candidates, the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) on Friday announced that 98 candidates are now in the fray for 45 seats of the upper house of parliament.
The ECP had earlier received 166 applications against 54 seats. At present, the Senate comprises 100 members, but after the 18th Amendment, the number has increased to 104, with each provincial assembly represented by one minority member in the Senate.
After the addition of non-Muslim seats, the Senate comprises 23 members each from all the four federating units, eight from Fata, and four from Islamabad. The 23 seats allocated to a province include 14 general seats, four reserved for women, four for technocrats and one for minorities. Polling will be held on March 2 and the senators will take oath on March 12.
Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Federal Administered Tribal Areas (Fata) and Balochistan have not elected anyone unopposed. A statement issued by the ECP on Friday said that eight candidates would be contesting from Punjab on general seats, as candidates for reserved seats for women, technocrats including Ulema and non-Muslims have already been elected unopposed.
Thirteen candidates will contest from Sindh: eight for general seats, and five for reserved seats. 25 candidates will contest from Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. Balochistan has the largest number of candidates at 41.
It will be the first time that the Jamaat-e-Islami will lose its representation in the Senate for the next three years, while the PPP is set to become the single largest party in the Upper House for the first time since Zia-ul Haq’s era.
Meanwhile, the National Registration and Database Authority handed over the preliminary voters list comprising 83.280 million votes to the ECP. The entries include 47.350 million males and 35.93 million females.
The ECP will display the preliminary list on 50,000 centers across the country for three weeks in order to rectify mistakes. Once they are displayed, the ECP will start accepting applications from voters for the correction of these lists.
Sindh
The candidates of PML-Q (likeminded) have decided to contest in the Senate election. They did not withdraw their nomination papers on Friday, the last date for withdrawals.
On the other hand, the provincial election commission issued a notification declaring Federal Finance Minister Abdul Hafeez Shaikh of PPP and Dr Farogh Naseem of MQM unopposed senators on technocrat seats.
The unopposed election became possible when members of PPP, MQM and PML-Q withdrew their nomination papers. Meanwhile, the nomination papers of Mangal Das Arwani from PML-Q (Likeminded) were rejected on legal grounds.
Covering candidates Rashid Rabbani and Shahida Rehmani of PPP and Ponjo Bhel of MQM withdrew their nomination forms. As many as 12 candidates were supposed to contest the elections on March 2, but since two have already been elected, elections will now be held for ten seats. The election commission has finalised 13 candidates competing for general and reserved seats.
It was expected that PML-Q (Likeminded) candidates Ghaffar Qureshi, Yasim Farukh and Photomal Dileep will withdraw their papers following negotiations with PPP, but they have decided to contest in the elections.
Talking to The Express Tribune, Provincial Election Commissioner Sono Khan Baloch said that Dr Kareem Khwaja, Saeed Ghani, Raza Rabbani and Ajiz Dhamrah of PPP, Mustafa Kamal and colonel (Ret) Tahir Mashadi of MQM, Syed Muzaffar Hussain Shah of PML-F and Ghaffar Qureshi of PML-Q (likeminded) will contest for the seven general seats.
Baloch said Rashida Rehmani of PPP has withdrawn her nomination, while Nasreen Jalil of MQM, Mudassar Sahar Kamran of PPP and Yasim Farukh of PML-Q (Likeminded) will contest for the two women seats.
Hari Ram Kishori Lal of PPP and Photomal of PML-Q (Likeminded) will contest for the minorities’ seat.
Gaffar Qureshi said he not only had the support of different parliamentary parties in the Sindh Assembly, but also of some PPP members. “We will contest the elections and will not let any party win unopposed in Sindh.”
Balochistan
As many as 41 candidates will contest in the Senate elections from Balochistan, while five candidates withdrew their nomination papers on Friday.
Election Commission Balochistan issued a final list of candidates. According to the list, 19 candidates will compete for 7 general seats, 9 for 2 women seats, while 8 for 2 two seats of Ulema and Technocrats. Similarly, five candidates will contest for one seat of minority.
Out of the 22 nomination papers for 7 general seats, the papers of Ahmed Khan were rejected, while Manzoor Mengal and Umar Jamali withdrew their papers.
Similarly, out of 13 nomination papers on women seats, papers of Hina Bibi and Fouzia Tabasum were rejected, while Farra Azim Shah and Nasima Bibi withdrew.
Ten candidates filed their nomination papers for two technocrat seats: Javed Iqbal and Manzoor Gichki were rejected. Seven candidates filed their nomination papers for the seat of minority: nomination papers of George Paul were rejected while Basant Lal Gulshan withdrew his papers.
Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa
Nine candidates withdrew their nomination papers for the upcoming Senate elections, leaving about 26 contestants to compete for 12 seats in the Upper House.
Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) officials said that about 35 candidates had submitted their nomination papers for Senate seats; however, nine of them withdrew their papers.
Of those who withdraw their candidatures, five had submitted their nominations for general seats; one for technocrat, two for women and one for the seat of minorities.
Shamroz Khan and Tabinda Zafar of PPP, Mian Ifthikar Hussain, Razaullah Khan, Tabbasum Shams and Tajuddin Khan of ANP, Asif Karim of PML-N and Gulshan Yousuf of JUI-F withdrew their papers.
Out of the final list of 26 candidates, 13 will contest for seven general seats, six for two technocrat seats, four for two women seats and two for a single minorities’ seat.
Senate elections will be held in the K-P assembly building from 9:00am to 4:00pm.
Published in The Express Tribune, February 25th, 2012.
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All are friendly in common interest, while the masses suffer. Think it is lack of education and understanding in proper perspective. Fear of the creator is missing, when it come to governance.?? Money is more important and plays a pivotal role.??
I am not interested to know as what is going on for the Senate Election, as any one who will lose will be wiped out and people who will become Senators will serve themselves, their family members and their relatives and not the masses.
Why most of upper middle and upper class is against ppp while majorty of lower and lower middle class has always supported ppp, why? I think there must be something positive in ppp,s govt so this class support it!
Whats wrong with Pakistan? Have we not seen enough of the incapability and ineffectiveness of PPP government for them to be get re-elected? Is the media doing a poor job at not highlighting the destruction that PPP is causing?
May God save Pakistan
When their common interests are at risk, they all join hands and sit together, i wish if they had done that for the nations interests