Opposition in Punjab PA may not get even one Senate seat

ISLAMABAD: The diminutive opposition in the Punjab Assembly is making a futile attempt to grab at least one Senate seat in the March 3 election to half of the Upper House of Parliament.
The opposition can get a seat only if the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) does a special favour to it. But it seems very difficult if not impossible.
“Why should we give away any seat when some of these opposition parties struggled hand-in-glove to destabilize the government and derail democracy? Every party will get the seats as per its numerical strength in the Punjab Assembly,” a senior PML-N leader told The News.
PML-Q President Chaudhry Shujaat Hussain and senior Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) leader Manzoor Wattoo have recently discussed the Senate election with the main objective of securing at least one seat from Punjab.
However, the numbers’ game doesn’t support their bid at all. Both the parties have eight seats each in the 371-member provincial assembly as against 312 lawmakers of the PML-N. By putting their entire strength together, all the opposition parties had a chance, though remote, of squeezing one seat if the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) 29 legislators had not boycotted the Senate election in Punjab. After their decision, the opposition’s force stands drastically scaled down.
The Jamaat-e-Islami and another party have one seat each while Ijazul Haq’s PML has two seats. The support of at least fifty-three lawmakers is required to elect one senator on the general seat in the Punjab Assembly.
Never in the history has the PML-N had such a firm control over this provincial assembly as it got in the 2013 general elections. It is going to clinch all the eleven Senate seats – seven general, and two women and technocrats each. Although the numerical scenario is not conducive for Chaudhry Shujaat, he wants re-election, which is possible only if the PML-N changes its mind. He is no doubt a conciliatory and saner voice in politics.
However, the role the PML-Q played in cahoots with Pakistan Awami Tehreek (PAT) chief Dr Tahirul Qadri to wrap up the democratic dispensation obviously greatly annoyed the PML-N, which doesn’t have a soft corner for him. As the luck would have it, Chaudhry Shujaat is the only senator of the five PML-Q legislators, who has retired. He was elected in 2009 for a six-year term. His party still has Syed Mushahid Hussain elected from the federal capital, Kamal Ali Agha chosen from Punjab, and Saeedul Hassan Mandokhel and Rubina Irfan elected from Balochistan.
After their tenure will expire in 2018, the PML-Q will stand wiped out from the Senate if the present assemblies remained in place till then. The next election to half of the Senate will be held in March 2018 before the new parliamentary polls, which will be arranged a couple of month later.
While the opposition parties in the Punjab Assembly is a negligible force, unable to elect even one senator, their counterparts in the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP) legislature are relatively better placed and are in a position to select some senators by joining hands, following a give and take policy.
The result of the Senate election in the Punjab Assembly is almost clear even by now. But the same is not the case in the assemblies of the KP and Balochistan. In the Sindh legislature, the position is also by and large clear. In the KP and Balochistan assemblies where the mandate is very split, the chances of quiet shifting of loyalties for different considerations are not ruled out. As per the past practice, voting doesn’t take place in these legislatures strictly according to the party discipline. Apparently, keeping this in view, PTI Chairman Imran Khan has warned that he would expel from the party all the KP lawmakers, who indulged in corrupt practices and voted for any candidate in violation of the party decision.