PML-N board finalises Senate probables

LAHORE: A 14-member parliamentary board on Thursday finalised the names for the upcoming Senate elections after interviewing the candidates and forwarded the list to Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, The News has learnt.
The meeting held in the federal capital on Thursday was chaired by the Leader of the House in Senate Raja Zafar-ul-Haq – a senior party leader and the PML-N chairman – as Nawaz, who is the parliamentary board head, was busy with some other important engagements. The prime minister, being the board head, has the ultimate authority to finalise the candidates.
According to sources, the meeting was attended by Federal Information Minister Pervaiz Rashid, Political Secretary to the Prime Minister Dr Asif Kirmani, PML-N Women Wing Central President Senator Nuzhat Amir Sadiq and other political heavyweights.
Sources said the party had shortlisted the names after completing the interview process, which took take place in back-to-back meetings on Wednesday and Thursday.
It is learnt that the party had interviewed 16 candidates from the Islamabad Capital Territory (ICT), 34 from Balochistan, 10 from Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, five from Federally Administered Tribal Areas (Fata) and an impressive 87 from Punjab, where the party is in a comfortable majority. A list of the finalised candidates, sources say, has been sent to Nawaz for his final approval.
Elections will be held on March 3 for 52 seats, which is 50 percent of the total of 104 seats.
The province-wise breakdown shows that each province has 11 vacant seats – seven general and four reserved – for the elections. Polls will also be held for four seats of Fata and two of Islamabad as well as two reserved for the minorities.
The party is said to have received 170 applications for the Senate elections, making it difficult for the prime minister to make the final choice.
The PML-N sources said the party was confident of winning all the 11 vacant seats from Punjab in the absence of PTI in the provincial assembly.
Well-placed sources in the party confirmed that those who had applied for tickets from Punjab included Senator Chaudhry Jaffer Iqbal, Senator Pervaiz Rasheed, former president of PML-N Women Wing Punjab Dr Najma Hameed, former MNA Ghulam Dastigir Khan, PML-N media coordinator Mohammed Mehdi, former chairman of Pakistan Steel Mills Lt Gen (retd) Abdul Qayyum, Special Assistant to PM Nawaz Sharif on Foreign Affairs Syed Tariq Fatemi and Raja Zafar-ul-Haq.
It was further learnt that some members of the party are unhappy that almost half of the parliamentary board members are themselves among the aspirants, since the board is expected to be impartial in the scrutiny process.
The party leadership is stated to be confident of sweeping the Senate polls and has even begun the process of choosing the successor of the current Senate Chairman Syed Nayyer Hussain Bokhari. The six-year term of Bokhari, a veteran politician from PPP, expires in March this year as he was elected for the Upper House of Parliament in March 2009.
Sources said a group within the PML-N wishes to pitch the current Finance Minister Ishaq Dar for the post of Senate chairman. This group of elite PML-N members have approached Dar and are awaiting his response.
On very close terms with Nawaz, the PML-N heavyweight also served as the leader of opposition in the Senate after 2012 polls and is currently the parliamentary leader of the PML-N in the House.
In acknowledgement of his parliamentary services, Dar was also decorated with a Nishan-e-Imtiaz, the highest civilian award of the country, by former president Asif Ali Zardari in March 2011.