Senate polls: Rabbani weighs in on ‘incomplete house’ debate

ISLAMABAD: The fate of oath taking and election for the post of Senate chairman and deputy chairman after the Tuesday’s Senate election still hanging till the Senate elections in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP), which were postponed by the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP), but former Senate chairman Mian Raza Rabbani opined that though there was no bar legally on conduct of elections of constitutional post yet it was not ‘appropriate’ to conduct these election when House was not complete.

According to constitutional experts, despite the Senate elections, the Senate will remain unfunctional till the Senate elections in KP. When contacted, constitutional expert Raza Rabbani said though there was no bar under the law and rules for the oath taking of newly elected senators yet it was not “appropriate’ that oath and elections of Senate chairman and deputy chairman be held in the given situation when 11 seats of senators from KP were vacant. Rabbani was of the view that it would also not appropriate when half of seats from a federating unit—Khyber Pakhtunkhwa—were vacant then it would be not be appropriate to hold the elections of Senate chairman and deputy chairman. He said it would be better that the KP government should follow the decision of Peshawar High Court and summon the session of provincial assembly to administrate the oath of member on reserved seats in KP.—Asim Yasin