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Thursday March 28, 2024

PTI to get at least four Senate seats from KP

Party has no prospect of getting any seat from other provinces or Centre

By Tariq Butt
January 21, 2015
ISLAMABAD: Having no prospects to win even a single Senate seat from the national, Punjab and Sindh assemblies, the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) is unlikely to end boycott of these legislatures to participate in the election to half of the Upper House of Parliament.
The PTI doesn’t have the minimum required number of legislators in any of these three assemblies to elect even one senator.At least 53 lawmakers are needed in the Punjab Assembly to choose one senator whereas the PTI has only 29 members in this legislature.
In Sindh, minimum 24 lawmakers are required to select one senator while the PTI has just four legislators. It has no representation whatsoever in the Balochistan Assembly.The fact that the PTI has no chance to win any Senate seat from the national, Punjab and Sindh assemblies will keep it away from being part of the election to the Upper House from these legislatures.
The PTI has undoubtedly accepted the decisions of the speakers of the national, Punjab and Sindh assemblies regarding rejection of the resignations of its legislators as it has stopped harping on the theme that they have stepped down. Since they declined to appear before the respective Speaker individually, their resignations were turned down. They insisted on presenting themselves before the Speaker collectively. The party feared that several MPs might defect if they showed up before the Speaker individually as they do not want to leave their parliamentary positions.
However, the PTI will certainly take part in the Senate election to elect its senators from the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP) Assembly because its lawmakers have neither resigned nor have they boycotted its proceedings.
It will easily win at least four Senate seats from the KP in view of its numerical position in the provincial assembly and will thus make debut in the Senate. These newly elected MPs will enjoy full six-year tenure.
PTI wanted to get in the Senate some committed leaders belonging to other provinces than the KP. But there are legal hurdles in their way.It is mandatory that the name of a person wishing to be elected to the Senate must appear in the electoral rolls of that province from where he wants to be chosen.
Article 62(1)(c) is relevant here. It says a person shall not be qualified to be elected as member of the Senate unless he is not less than thirty years of age and is enrolled as a voter in any area in a province or, as the case may be, the federal capital or the Federally Administered Tribal Areas, from where he seeks membership.
Seasoned constitutional expert Wasim Sajjad says one can transfer his vote to any place in Pakistan. In the case of the National Assembly, such shifting has to take place before the announcement of the election schedule and after that it is disallowed.
Asked whether a person having no property in a province can transfer his vote to it, he said that it is possible because non-ownership of any real estate doesn’t disqualify anyone to be voter.
Among the senior PTI leaders, Secretary General Jehangir Tareen whom the party wants to get in the Senate has the Punjab domicile, and so are many others. They can’t be elected from the KP Assembly.
By constantly staying away from the assemblies, the PTI has disenfranchised 7,679,954 voters (16.61% of the polled ballots that produced 10.52% seats for it in the National Assembly), who supported it in the 2013 polls.
They have gone unrepresented in the legislature over the past few months.The PTI leaders are unnecessarily insisting on continuing boycott of the national, Punjab and Sindh assemblies even against the wish of a majority of their legislators.