Lack of majority in Senate cause of embarrassment for PML-N

ISLAMABAD: The Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) has once again fallen victim to severe pangs of lacking majority in the 104-member Senate and has resultantly been pushed in an awkward situation.
The new example of the PML-N’s embarrassment is the Senate’s approval of an amendment in the Elections Act, 2017, seeking cancellation of its section 2013 that had allowed a disqualified leader, ousted Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif in this case, to become office bearer of a political party.
Although the PPP and its allies had earlier been defeated by the PML-N and its supporters in the Senate at the time of passage of the Election Act just a few days back, they quickly decided to avenge that humiliating beating despite their supposed majority in this chamber and passed the amendment.
The second recent instance of the tremendous uneasiness for having an inferior position in the Senate that the PML-N has been confronted with happened when a constitutional amendment bill that will arm the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) with the required powers, paving the way for the 2018 parliamentary polls, could not sail through the day it was tabled after its approval by the National Assembly last week.
Although the PML-N with 27 senators has a one vote edge over the Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) that has 26 MPs of its own, the latter is supported by more members belonging to other parliamentary parties in the Upper House of Parliament, making it numerically superior over the former.
Till the time the PML-N and its allies get majority in the Senate, they will have to walk on a bumpy road, beseeching the PPP and other opposition groups to vote even for the most essential legislation, ordinary or constitutional. Their opponents take every step to stress and torment the PML-N on such occasions.
The PML-N is not the alone in the history that is deep down because of the nerve-wracking condition for not having a comfortable position in the Senate. When the Benazir Bhutto-led PPP had won the 1988 general elections with a thin margin, her government had not a single member in the Upper House. During her turbulent 20-month rule, the prime minister had appeared in the Senate only once and her government had not been able to enact even a single piece of legislation, relying solely on issuance of presidential ordinances for the day-to-day functioning. At the time, the PML had the Senate under its firm grip, and it had exploited its position all the time.
The Benazir Bhutto government was immensely handicapped precisely as the present administration has been. The previous Senate was extremely aggressive against the PPP regime exactly as the current Upper House has been against the PML-N government.
All sorts of adversaries of the PML-N are now hell-bent not to let the stage come when it will get a secure position in the election to 52 senators, half of the chamber, in coming March. This is a nightmarish scenario for its opponents, who are determined to avert it come what may. It is in this background that the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) is on a solo flight, demanding snap elections. One of the items of this ambitious agenda is to deprive the PML-N of its impending majority in the Senate.
Given their numerical strength in the present provincial assemblies, the PML-N and its partners will certainly bag a clear majority in the Senate. The PPP, which presently stands on the second position in the Upper House, will have its status drastically diminished.
Hardly any nominee of the opposition parties, their strength counted together, will be in a position to win from the Punjab assembly in March because the PML-N enjoys unprecedented majority there. In Balochistan Assembly, the situation will not be different as the PML-N and its associates including the National Party, Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam-Fazl (JUI-F) and Pukhtunkhwa Milli Awami Party will get almost all the allocated Senate seats, leaving nothing for the PPP. The PTI has no presence whatsoever in this provincial legislature.
In the Sindh Assembly, the PPP and Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM) will share the allotted quota of Senate seats. The PML-N, PTI or any other political party have nothing to take from this legislature.
In the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP) Assembly, the allocated share of the Senate seats will go to the PTI, Jamaat-e-Islami and opposition parties like the PML-N, JUI-F, Awami National Party and Qaumi Watan Party of Aftab Sherpao.