Five Senate by-poll candidates’ nomination papers accepted

The provincial election commissioner (PEC) and returning officer for next month’s Senate by-poll from Sindh has accepted the nomination papers of five candidates after scrutiny. The seat was held by the Pakistan Peoples Party’s (PPP) Mustafa Nawaz Khokhar until his resignation earlier this month.

According to the Election Commission of Pakistan, the last date for filing appeals against the acceptance or rejection of the nomination papers is November 28. The final list of the candidates will be notified on December 2. Polling will be held at the provincial assembly on December 8.

The commission has appointed PEC Aijaz Anwar Chohan as the RO. Joint PEC Ali Asghar Sial, Shaheed Benazirabad Regional Election Commissioner (REC) Syed Nadeem Hyder, Karachi REC Nazar Abbas and Sanghar District Election Commissioner Shahnawaz Brohi will perform their duties as polling officers.

The five candidates are the PPP’s Syed Waqar Mehdi and Mukhtiar Ahmed Dhamrah, and the Muttahida Qaumi Movement-Pakistan’s (MQM-P) Sabeen Ghauri, Muhammad Tariq Mansoor and Ahmed Saleem Siddiqui.

Mehdi is the PPP’s provincial general secretary and the chief minister’s special assistant for political affairs in the CM’s Inspection, Enquiries & Implementation Team. Dhamrah is the PPP’s provincial information secretary and has represented the party as a senator from March 2012 to March 2018.

Although sources within the PPP are certain that Mehdi will be elected as a senator, he can face strong competition from the MQM-P’s final candidate. A couple of days ago, while submitting the nomination papers of the three MQM-P candidates, the party’s Muhammad Hussain had told the media that the Muttahida leadership will announce the ticket for the final candidate after consultation.