Senate elections: Ruling party to draw up strategy

PM invites party members next week to review nominations


Abdul Manan January 18, 2015
Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif has invited party members next week to review nominations. PHOTO: PID

ISLAMABAD:


Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif has called a party meeting next week to focus on the upcoming Senate election scheduled in March, The Express Tribune has learnt.


According to sources privy to the development, a few members of Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) parliamentary board along with the senior leadership will meet the prime minister, who is also the chairman of the board, to seek his permission about preparations for the upper house election.

After getting the PM’s approval, the sources pointed out, they will start seeking applications from the candidates.

This time, the party is willing to keep its five existing senators while the rest of the expected party seats will be filled with other allied groups, the sources revealed, adding that the party’s parliamentary board will approach its allies in Balochistan and Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa (K-P) for the election.

However, the PML-N is expected to capture seats from Punjab due to its majority in the Punjab Assembly, the sources noted.

The ruling PML-N is upbeat about improving its tally in the Senate polls to be held for 52 seats of the 104-member upper house when half of the senators will be retiring on completion of their six-year term.

The senators are elected by the members of the provincial legislatures and the composition of the existing assemblies.

According to a PML-N official, the party has a total of 16 senators in the upper house and eight of them are retiring – seven from Punjab and one from Balochistan.

Pervaiz Rashid, Muhammad Jaffar Iqbal, Prof Sajjid Mir, Raja Zafarul Haq and Mushahidullah Khan will repeat their tenure in the Senate.

Out of 371 members of the Punjab Assembly, the PML-N has 312 MPAs. In March, 11 senators – seven on general seats, two each of technocrat and women – would be elected in the March election.

The party is convinced that it can win all seats from the Punjab Assembly. Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP)’s three seats and Pakistan Muslim League-Quaid (PML-Q)’s one seat would not succeed either to retain their seats from Punjab or win with the support of the existing numbers of their members in the assembly.

Published in The Express Tribune, January 18th, 2015.

COMMENTS (7)

Adnan Siddiqi | 9 years ago | Reply

Another impediment in the path of PML-N blown to smithereens. The senate will now be controlled by PML-N and this was the last straw that broke the camel's back.

Malveros | 9 years ago | Reply

It's time to kick out PPP from the senate. Godspeed PML(N).

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