A lucky draw today will decide the two unlucky Senators from minority community whose tenure will be cut short to half of normal term as member of Upper House of parliament.
Acting Chief Election Commissioner Justice Anwar Zaheer Jamali, who is also a serving judge of the Supreme Court of Pakistan, will supervise the draw process in the Senate hall.
In the 18th constitutional amendment the parliament passed in 2010, the strength of Senate was increased to 104 from 100 members with addition of four new seats reserved for non-Muslims.
In 2012 when 50 members of Senate retired on completion of their six year tenure, 54 new members were elected –four among them from the minority community entered in Senate for the first time.
ECP will hold a draw among these four Senators now. The draw will decide which two minority Senators would have to retire when half of the other Senators whose six year tenure will be completing in March would have to quit.
The March Senate polls will elect 52 new Senators-50 Muslim and two non-Muslims. In this way the two lucky minority members will continue to work till the rest of their tenure, when 50 colleagues who were elected in 2012 complete their six-year term ending in March 2018.
In future Senate polls, 52 members will be retiring every three years and replaced by the same number for the continuity of upper house.
Published in The Express Tribune, October 14th, 2014.
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