High-stakes polling for 37 Senate seats begins

ISLAMABAD, MAR 3: Polling for 37 seats of the Senate is underway under the supervision of the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) as a total of 78 candidates contest from Sindh, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Balochistan and Islamabad.

In the National Assembly, the first vote was cast by PTI's Shafiq Arain while the second one was cast by federal Minister for Water Resources Faisal Vawda.

All Senate candidates from Punjab were elected unopposed last month after disqualification or withdrawal of papers by other contestants.

Polling started at 9am and will continue till 5pm without any break. ECP staff reached the Parliament House in Islamabad early morning on Wednesday. The campaign for this year's election ended at midnight on March 3.

Voting is taking place through secret ballots after a long-drawn open ballot controversy kept the ruling and opposition parties engaged in a war of words as well as a legal battle before the much-awaited Supreme Court decision.

While the ruling PTI’s numerical strength in the Senate is expected to almost double from the existing 14 seats, the hottest contest is expected in Islamabad between former prime minister Yousuf Raza Gilani, who is contesting as a joint candidate of the Pakistan Democratic Movement (PDM), and Adviser to PM on Finance Hafeez Sheikh.

The math

The Senate — the upper house of parliament — was, until recently, a body of 104 lawmakers. Each serves a term of six years, barring resignation, disqualification, or other extraordinary circumstances. They are not all elected at the same time: rather, half are elected at one time, and the other half three years later.

In 2021, 52 senators (who were elected in 2015) are set to retire. The other 52 were elected in 2018 and will retire in 2024. However, elections are being held only on 48 seats this time after erstwhile Federally Administered Tribal Areas (Fata) were merged with KP.

Therefore, the Senate will now comprise 100 lawmakers; 23 each from all the provinces and four from Islamabad. The remaining four senators from Fata will retire in 2024.

The 23 seats allocated to a province comprise 14 general seats, four reserved for women, four for technocrats and one for minority member.

Earlier, all Senate candidates from Punjab were elected unopposed after major political parties — PTI, PML-N and PPP — agreed to withdraw candidatures of some of their respective hopefuls. As a result, out of the 11 seats, five each went to the PTI and the PML-N and one to the PML-Quaid, an ally of the PTI.

The ECP, in its code of conduct, had barred President Dr Arif Alvi and the governors of all the provinces from taking part in the election campaigns.

It had also instructed all candidates to open exclusive accounts for their election expenses and to make all transactions through it. They will have to submit their return of election expenses to the returning officer on Form C within five days from the date of election.

Election process

The Senate election is held through secret voting on the basis of single transferable vote through "preference voting". All four provincial assemblies are electoral colleges for the four respective assemblies.

Provincial assemblies

Punjab (47 votes* elect a senator)

There are 371 total seats in Punjab Assembly; however, only 368 are currently occupied. Of these, 181 are occupied by members of the PTI, 165 by PML-N members, 10 by PML-Q members, 7 by PPP members, 4 by independent lawmakers, and one by a member of the Pakistan Rah-e-Haq Party.

Sindh (22 votes* elect a senator)

The total seats in Sindh are 168. Currently, 99 of them are members of the PPP, 21 are members of MQM-P, 30 PTI, 14 Grand Democratic Alliance, three TLP and one MMA.

KP (19 votes* elect a senator)

The total seats in the KP Assembly after the merger of Fata are 145. Ninety-four are members of the PTI, 14 are members of MMA, 12 of the ANP, 7 of the PML-N, 5 of the PPP, 4 of BAP, 3 of JUI-F, one each of the PML-Q and Jamaat-i-Islami, and 4 are independent members.

Balochistan (9 votes* elect a senator)

The total number of seats in the Balochistan Assembly is 65 but currently 64 seats are occupied. Of these, 24 are BAP members, 10 BNP, 10 MMA, 7 PTI, 4 from the ANP, 3 BNP-A, 2 Hazara Democratic Party, one each from the PML-N, PkMAP and Jamhuri Watan Party, and one independent member.

Federal (171 votes* elect a senator)

At present, the National Assembly has 342 seats for lawmakers from across the country. It currently comprises 341 members. The ruling PTI holds 157 seats, PML-N 83, PPP 55, 15 MMA, MQM-P 7, BAP 5, PML-Q 4, BNP 4, GDA 3, AML 1, ANP 1, JWP 1, and four are independent members.

Prominent candidates

There are a total of 78 candidates contesting the 2021 Senate elections from the federal capital and the three provinces.

The candidates include 14 from the PTI, 13 from the PPP, two from the PML-N, two from MQM-P, 11 from BAP and one from TLP. In addition to this, three candidates will be contesting as independents.

Those who were elected to the upper house of parliament from Punjab include Saifullah Sarwar Khan Nyazee, Aon Abbas, Ejaz Ahmad Chaudhry and Syed Ali Zafar of the PTI, Prof Sajid Mir and Irfanul Siddiqui of the PML-N, and Kamil Ali Agha of the PML-Q.

Prominent Senate candidates from Sindh include PTI's Faisal Vawda (the party's only candidate for a general seat), current Deputy Chairman Senate Saleem Mandviwalla, Sherry Rehman, Farooq H. Naek and Taj Haider from the PPP, Pir Sadaruddin Shah of the Grand Democratic Alliance (GDA) and MQM-P's Faisal Subzwari.

In KP, prominent politicians contesting the election include federal information minister Syed Shibli Faraz, special assistant to the prime minister Sania Nishtar and Liaqat Khan Tarakai, Maulana Attaur Rehman, Tariq Khattak and Ranjeet Singh from Jamiat Ulema-i-Islam-Fazl (JUI-F), Taj Mohammad Afridi of BAP and PPP's Farhatullah Babar.

The PTI has no candidate for the Senate from Balochistan. Candidates from other parties include Balochistan Awami Party (BAP) founder Saeed Ahmed Hashmi and Sajid Tareen of the Balochistan National Party-Mengal (BNP-M).

Election controversy

Allegations of horse-trading are present during every Senate election but this year's polls were marred by controversies over the method of voting as the government sought to hold them through open ballot while opposition parties rejected the idea.

The ruling PTI filed a reference in the Supreme Court asking for its opinion on whether the elections could be held through open ballot, promulgated an ordinance, and introduced a constitutional amendment bill in the National Assembly, all just weeks before the polls were to take place.

On Monday, the Supreme Court announced that Senate polls would be held through secret ballot under Article 226 of the Constitution. A day later, the ECP said that this year's election would be "conducted as provided in the Constitution and law as per past practice".

Online complaints

A complaint management system has been generated for public to share their grievances with the ECP online through its official website www.ecp.gov.pk.

Besides, a special monitoring cell has been set up in the Election Commission Secretariat to check corrupt practices in the Senate elections under Section 167 of the Elections Act, 2017. This cell is working 24 hours a day so that people can send a complaint of any corrupt practice related to Senate election 2021 to the ECP.

As the Chief Election Commissioner will also monitor the Senate election himself, people can send their complaints about electoral corruption directly to him at cec@ecp.gov.pk.

On Tuesday, the CEC called a meeting of Nadra chairman, PTA chairman and the FIA director general and sought their proposals to check electoral corruption. They were also instructed to immediately inform the ECP if any kind of corruption came to their notice so that immediate legal action could be taken.

To make Senate elections transparent, the ECP has already decided to enforce a code of conduct, obtain affidavits from candidates and set up a digital facilitation centre.

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