Federal and provincial lawmakers elect 52 members of upper house today. PHOTO: AFP
Federal and provincial lawmakers will elect 52 senators today (Thursday) to fill in for as many members retiring this month after completing their constitutional six-year term. A neck-and-neck contest is expected between the ruling PML-N and the main opposition party, the PPP, as they vie to take control of the upper house of parliament for the next three years.
With four contestants already elected unopposed in Sindh – two each from the PPP and MQM – voting will be held for the remaining 48 seats with members of the provincial assemblies electing senators on their respective provincial quotas – seven for Sindh, 11 for Punjab, 12 each for Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa (K-P) and Balochistan for different categories of seats.
Members of the National Assembly will be voting for two seats for Islamabad Capital Territory (ICT) while MNAs from the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (Fata) will elect four senators from the tribal belt.
According to the final list of contestants notified by the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP), 84 candidates will contest for 33 general seats from the provinces, Fata and the ICT while 22 candidates will contest for eight seats reserved for women in the provinces and ICT. Eighteen candidates will contest for eight seats reserved for technocrats, including Ulema, while eight others will run for two seats – one each from K-P and Balochistan – reserved for minorities.
After their failure to change the voting system for the Senate elections, the PML-N and Imran Khan’s PTI are striving to maintain discipline within their ranks and keep a check on selling of votes by their MPs – also called horse-trading.
Imran’s party which emerged as a potent political force in the 2013 general elections is contesting the Senate polls from K-P – the province where it is in power – and will make its debut in the upper house of the parliament.
The provincial election commissioners will act as presiding officers to supervise voting in the halls of the provincial assemblies. Two ECP directors general will supervise polling for ICT and Fata seats in the Parliament House. Each of these officials will be assisted by five to six junior ECP officers to conduct polling and compile results.
Unofficial results will be announced immediately after the vote count. However, final notification will be issued once the elected members submit details of their election campaign and after conclusion of pending court cases regarding their candidature, if any.
Single transferable voting system
The MPs will cast their vote under the single transferable vote system by marking their priorities for each category of seats. The colour of ballot paper for general seats is white, for technocrat seats, light green, for women’s seats, light pink, for minority seats, light yellow and for Fata seats, off-white. The lawmakers are required to mark their priority with digits in English or Urdu; however, they cannot mix the two types of digits on one ballot paper. Except for writing these digits, any other marking on ballot paper will make them invalid.
Secret balloting
To ensure secrecy of ballot, election authorities have barred the members from taking cellphones or any other devise that can capture image of ballot paper inside the polling station in an attempt to stop horse-trading. The picture is purportedly used as proof in case of vote selling. It will be a test for the ECP to ensure no lawmaker carries such a devise inside the polling station.
Neck and neck race
Besides their respective strongholds in Punjab and Sindh assemblies, the PML-N and PPP are aiming to secure seats from other provinces to maximise their numbers in order to grab the covet offices of Senate chairman and his deputy.
Newly elected members will augment their numbers in a thin race to become single largest party in the upper house. With an expected tally of just above two dozen each, none of the two parties can claim on their own the overall majority (the strength of 53 members) in the 104-member house.
The two parties will need support of other smaller parties not only to clinch offices of chairman and deputy chairman but also to pass or reject any legislation during the current tenure of the PML-N which enjoys a comfortable majority in the National Assembly.
A normal legislation needs 51% vote of the two houses separately while for a change in the Constitution, support of two-thirds of members of each house is needed. Some other parties, which have fewer numbers in K-P and Balochistan assemblies, have fielded more candidates than their strength, prompting fears of horse-trading.
Polling will be held from 9am till 4pm in the halls of the assemblies that have been declared polling stations.
The Senate comprises 104 members – 23 each from the four federating units, eight from Fata, and four from ICT. The 23 seats allocated to a province comprise 14 general, four reserved seats for women, four reserved for technocrats and one for minorities. The term of a senator is six-year, but 50% of the total members retire after every three years and elections are held for new senators.
Published in The Express Tribune, March 5th, 2015.
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