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Friday March 29, 2024

Political links surface as Senate polls near

ISLAMABAD: The feverish run-up to the March 5 Senate elections has produced important political alignments, maybe temporarily, which will have a significant bearing on contest for the slot of chairman of the Upper House of the Parliament.Most of the moves, including strong opposition to the proposed constitutional amendment to purge

By Tariq Butt
March 02, 2015
ISLAMABAD: The feverish run-up to the March 5 Senate elections has produced important political alignments, maybe temporarily, which will have a significant bearing on contest for the slot of chairman of the Upper House of the Parliament.
Most of the moves, including strong opposition to the proposed constitutional amendment to purge the Senate elections of corruption, undertaken by the Pakistan People’s Party (PPP), are intended to win the competition for the post of Senate chief at all costs.
It has considerably improved its position and cherishes to strengthen its relations with certain political parties, especially the Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM), Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam-Fazl (JUI-F) and Awami National Party (ANP) in the hope that they will stand behind its nominee for the seat of Senate chief.
These three parties will have around eighteen votes after the Senate elections and their votes will be very useful for the PPP. In addition, the PPP has the support of the four Pakistan Muslim League-Q (PML-Q) senators, who will not back the PML-N candidate in any case.
Former president Asif Zardari’s recent initiatives are aimed at weakening the prospects of the victory of the PML-N representative although the ruling party still has a number of allies, mostly smaller parties, on its side to support its cardholder.
The smooth agreement between the PPP and MQM that led to the unopposed election of their four candidates for the technocrats’ and women’s seats from Sindh is well-timed, coupled with their accord to become coalition partners in the Sindh government once again.
Although the MQM was for the proposed constitutional amendment with the PPP against it, it is unclear by now whether Altaf Hussain will ask his senators to vote for the PPP representative for the Senate chief. But the newfound bonhomie between the two parties points to a positive outcome for the PPP.
Another important development that has emerged in the campaign for the Senate elections is that chasm between the two coalition partners – the PML-N and JUI-F – has widened with Maulana Fazlur Rehman not only sticking to his strong reservations against the 21st Amendment but reinforcing them. However, he has no plan to pull out his two ministers from the Nawaz Sharif cabinet.
Furthermore, the JUI-F and Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) have got something more to hammer each other with their usual ferocity and acrimony. Fazlur Rehman says the PTI wants to return to the National Assembly on the pretext of voting for the proposed 22nd amendment while the PTI charges that the JUI chief is worried that corruption would go away after the Senate elections.
Had any the PML-N and the PPP that would emerge largest in terms of number of seats been in a comfortable position to get their Senate chief easily elected, there would not have been much jockeying to manage a couple of more seats by the PPP by hook or crook and the PPP would have backed the constitutional amendment as well.
The ongoing manipulative scenario apart, the election of the new Senate chairman would be a close call as the two main contenders, the PML-N and the PPP, are going to end up with almost equal number of senators after the March 5 polls as far as their individual tally would be concerned.
Considering their present strength and the additions to be made by the fresh election, the respective strength of the PML-N and the PPP will float around twenty-six senators, which implies that none will be in the position to get its favourite elected as the Senate chief single-handedly in the 104-member Upper House. Every one of them will be dependent on the support of the smaller parties and Federally Administered Tribal Area (Fata) senators.
The PTI, which will make its debut in the Senate, is unlikely to back either the PPP or the PML-N. With its nearly six senators, all to be elected by Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP) Assembly, it may watch the contest either from the sidelines or field its own candidate for the Senate chairman’s position.
It is not known how many independent contestants will return in the March 5 elections and as to which side they will vote for, there is only one such senator, Mohsin Leghari, left after the retirement of fifty-two lawmakers. He is close to the PML-N and will mostly likely go with it in the Senate chairman’s election.
With the retirement of its 21 senators out of a total of 40 members, the PPP is left with 19 lawmakers. It may get around seven seats from Sindh. However, it stands wiped out from the Punjab, KP and Balochistan because of its dismal performance in the 2013 general polls. But it is struggling to manage a seat from KP although it doesn’t have the requisite number to elect him.
The PML-N is left with eight senators after the retirement of an equal number of its members. It is going to win all the eleven seats from Punjab due to its unprecedented hold over this provincial assembly.
The PML-N will also secure the two seats from Islamabad. It or any of its allies will get the sole minority seat from Balochistan. The PTI will clinch a similar seat from the KP. As many as eleven seats (seven general and two women’s and technocrats’ seats each) are to be filled by the Punjab and Sindh assemblies, the Balochistan and KP legislature will contribute the same number of senators apart from one minority seat each. Besides, twelve Fata members of the National Assembly will elect four senators from the tribal areas.