PSP to field 10 candidates in Senate polls

As the Election Commission opened nominations for the Senate elections, the Pak Sarzameen Party obtained 10 forms on Saturday to field candidates in all categories.

The papers could be filed by February 8 and the polls are due on March 3. The PSP has a strength of eight MPAs – seven originally from the Muttahida Qaumi Movement-Pakistan and one from the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf – to contest for 12 seats for Sindh in the upper house.

General Secretary Raza Haroon said that they would contact other political parties for the elections and asked them to vote if they believed in the PSP manifesto. “There’s a need to debate public issues. [But] our country lacks leadership. [All] are doing ethnic politics.”

Defending the PSP move to capitalise on the MQM mandate, Haroon said that Altaf Hussain and his confidantes, not everyone associated with his party, were RAW agents.

After playing a move that could dent the MQM-Pakistan in these polls as four of its senators retire this year, he said Dr Farooq Sattar was the 12th player of his team.

Citing problems and their apparent redressal, he said that the federal government had failed and everything in the country was happening on Supreme Court orders. “Those who say this system is democracy may need counselling.”

Haroon said that the parliament failed to hold Nawaz Sharif accountable over the Panama scandal.