The Senate race

With the Senate elections less than a month away, the deal-making and horse-trading that is characteristic of the polls has already begun in earnest. The PTI was the first to announce a list of candidates, opting for the wealthy and the connected over long-time members of the party. Its list of seven candidates who have been awarded tickets includes electronics company magnate Ayub Afridi and businessman Azam Swati among others. The notable absentee on the list was Maulana Samiul Haq of the JUI-S. Last year, the PTI and the JUI-S had announced an electoral pact where the JUI-S would be given a Senate seat in return for supporting the PTI’s candidates for the National Assembly. With Samiul Haq not being given a seat, this alliance could now be in jeopardy. The Senate election will also be the first test of the strength of the PML-N in the aftermath of the Supreme Court Panama Papers ruling. The party and its allies are expected to take control of the upper house of parliament after the elections but some roadblocks appear in its path. The change of chief minister in Balochistan and talk of defections in Punjab were both seen as attempts to hurt the ruling party’s position in the Senate polls. Ironically, the first defection has come in favour of the PML-N with Mushahid Hussain, formally of the PML-Q, joining the party as its candidate for a Senate seat from Islamabad.

In Punjab, Chief Minister Shahbaz Sharif has managed to secure the loyalty of disgruntled Punjab Assembly members. Talk of an engineered outcome has dissipated as the PML-N has shored up its support and it is now likely to win every Senate seat from Punjab as none of the other parties have the votes to capture a single seat. Most of the interest is now in Sindh, where the Pak Sarzameen Party could become the first to win a Senate election without having a single member in either the provincial or National assemblies. Currently, there are at least seven members of the Sindh Assembly who had left the MQM-Pakistan to join the PSP but their resignations from the assembly have not yet been accepted by the speaker. They are consequently free to cast their votes for the PSP’s Raza Haroon. The MQM-P is currently fighting in court to force the speaker to accept their resignations so that the seats can be vacated and filled through by-elections. As every party struggles to get the maximum seats possible, we should expect more court challenges, defections and horse-trading over the next few weeks.