Senate elections: PTI in a fix over finalising candidates

Qureshi says it will not be easy to interview all 131 contenders and take decision

ISLAMABAD: A flood of applications from aspiring candidates has left Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) in a fix over who exactly it could nominate for the upcoming Senate elections.

The party has received 131 applications despite the fact it will be contesting only from the province of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (K-P).

“It would not be easy to interview all these contenders and take a decision,” the PTI Vice Chairman Shah Mehmood Qureshi said on Tuesday.

The PTI can bag as much as seven seats of Senate [4 general, one technocrat, one woman and one minority] provided its coalition partners including, Jamaat-e-Islami (JI) and Awami Jamhoori Ittihad (AJI) support it. According to details, 18 votes of the K-P MPAs will be required to secure one seat in the Senate.

The number of applications shows the yearning within the party to reach parliament house despite the party’s stance that put question mark on sanctity of the very house in the wake of rigging allegations.

The longing to become part of the parliament house is manifested by the application of the PTI leader Fauzia Kasuri, who has transferred her vote to the K-P in order to contest the elections.  The PTI has announced it would boycott Senate elections from all provinces except K-P saying it was the only assembly which came into being after free and fair elections.

Though Kasuri has pinned hopes to get the ticket, sources in the PTI told The Express Tribune that local leaders had reservations on awarding ticket to people from outside the province.

Published in The Express Tribune, February 11^th, 2015.