Race for Senate committee chairmanships kicks off

ISLAMABAD: The government is expected to start dialogue with the opposition parliamentary groups on distribution of various Senate standing committees chairmanship and endeavours would be made by either side to grab maximum number of important standing committees of the Upper House.
Lobbying has already started by various party senators to get chairmanships of important standing committees like foreign affairs, defence, Wapda, communication, Commerce and interior etc. The government would like to grab all or some of the most sensitive standing committees’ chairs for which the process of formation of committees may be delayed as was done in case of National Assembly when PML-N came to power in June 2013.
As the election process of the Upper House has come to an end after the election of four senators from Fata on March 20 and the process of formation of all the 32 standing committees with 4 functional committees has started forthwith. Newly elected Senate Chairman Mian Raza Rabbani wrote to the Senate secretary to write to the parliamentary leaders of various parties to name their members on various committees.
The distribution of Senate standing committees at will by the government was changed by the PPP government in 2008 when former president and PPP co-chairman to dole out chairs of various standing committees on basis of number of senators that every party had irrespective of treasury or the opposition groups. The tradition so set is expected to be continued by the PML0N government as well since it was in accordance with the spirit and guiding principles of Charter of Democracy (CoD).
If the formula of distribution of the senate chairs is adopted as such, the PPP will get a lion’s share of eight to nine committee chairs since it has the largest number of senators i.e. 28 and for every three senators one chairman could be chosen. PML-N which has strength of 26 can also get even number of chairmanships with 26 senators, PTI is likely to bag two to three chairs with seven plus two senators on its side, MQM has total strength of 8 and it may get at least two chairs, JUI-F has five senators and is eligible to get one but it may manoeuvre to get two chairs, Awami National Party (ANP) has seven senators and it can get two chairmanships, Pakhtunkhwa Milli Awami Party (PkMAP) and National Party (NP) from Balochistan have three each and can have one chairman each. Two chairmanships could go to Fata which has eight senators.