Senate results

There were no surprises on Tuesday when the ruling coalition swept the Senate polls as expected. The PPP took the lead with 11 seats while the PML-N came in second with six seats while MQM-P and independent candidate Faisal Vawda secured one seat each. The polling for the 19 vacant seats was held in the national, Punjab, and Sindh assemblies while elections on 11 Khyber Pakhtunkhwa’s seats were postponed by the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) over the ‘denial’ of oath-taking to the lawmakers elected on reserved seats. Now that the Senate polls are done minus KP, the elections for the Senate chairman and deputy chairman are on the cards. President Asif Zardari has appointed Foreign Minister Ishaq Dar as the presiding officer to conduct the election for the chairman and deputy chairman of the Senate.

This may not all be smooth sailing though. There is a quite potent argument that the Senate is incomplete without the KP component. That would make sense given that the electoral college for the chairman and deputy chairman election is supposed to be the Senate in its entirety – not part of the Senate. The other view is that after the Senate polls in three out of four provinces, the Senate is duly constituted and the election of the chairman and deputy chairman has to take place in the upper house’s first meeting after its new members take oath. It may be tempting to then read the KP government putting hurdles in the way of the reserved seats oath as its way of causing issues in the election of a new Senate chairman and deputy chairman. This tactic may not work though since we saw much of the same when the PTI tried to argue that the constitutional election of the prime minister and president could not take place because the National Assembly was incomplete. With the Senate elections done, albeit incomplete, the fact is that both upper and lower houses of parliament now have the numbers to support the ruling coalition, which will get its candidates elected as chairman and deputy chairman of the Senate – and then it is on to legislative business.

The controversy surrounding KP is another reminder of the reserved seats fiasco, something even PTI members admit was a mistake of their own making. Whatever the complications, what we do not need at this moment is for legislation and governance to be on hold – regardless of any politics. Far too many signs point to how one party may just want all else to pause while it is not in power. There is no denying the controversial nature of the 2024 elections, as was the case in 2018. There is no denying that there are matters in our courts that need to now be seen on an almost emergency level. But there is also no denying that disruptive politics will not get us anywhere. From not holding its intraparty elections which led to the bat symbol being taken away to its decision to merge with the Sunni Ittehad Council (SIC) that didn’t even contest the general elections and never submitted a list for reserved seats, the PTI seems to not care much for legalities. Here is the fact: once the Senate chairman and deputy chairman are elected, the government will start to go about its legislative business as usual. Whatever the reason and however things go, it is hoped that the government and the opposition are able to sort out their differences so people can take a breather from the uncertainty that has hounded this country for over two years now. The country, its people, its economy, and its politics – everyone really needs a break.