Election on reserved seats

Winners of multiple seats will have more say

By Our sepcial correspondent

ISLAMABAD: Double, triple, quadruple and quintuple votes of those returning from as many federal and provincial seats in Wednesday's parliamentary polls will be counted in the election of women and minorities on reserved seats.

This is contrary to the general practice when only one vote of all those who have won more than one seat is calculated in the election of the prime minister or chief ministers.

As per the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP), the final tally of the directly contested seats of the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) stands at 115, but in reality, these are 106 seats after deducting nine seats, which were clinched by those who returned from more than one constituency. Only 106 PTI votes will be counted in the election of the prime minister because in such process multiple seats held by the MPs don’t matter and only one seat each is computed.

However, while earmarking special females’ seats to the PTI, five votes of the party Chairman Imran Khan and two votes each of Major (R) Tahir Sadiq, Chaudhry Pervaiz Elahi and Ghulam Sarwar Khan will be counted.

The election of the premier and the provincial chief executives is held after filling the special seats.

The chief beneficiary of this legal provision, specifying counting of as many seats as a party has won regardless of its double, triple, quadruple and quintuple seats holders, will be the PTI, which may get at least two additional special women’s seats in the National Assembly from Punjab. This extra gain obviously carries tremendous importance in the extremely tight numbers game in the Lower House of the Parliament in which every single vote matters a lot.

Under the Constitution, the sixty reserved seats for women and 10 minorities seats are allocated to the political parties following the proportional representation system on the basis of the number of their members of the National Assembly (MNAs), elected on the directly contested general seats (272 in total) from a province.

Three reversed seats of women are to be filled up by a total of 16 MNAs from Balochistan; eight females are to be elected by 39 MPs returned from Khyber Pakhtunkhwa; 35 women will be elected from Punjab by 141 MNAs and 14 females are to be elected from Sindh by 61 MPs.

Clause 6(d) of Article 51 of the Constitution says that for the purpose of election to the National Assembly (or a provincial assembly) members to the seats reserved for women which are allocated to a province shall be elected in accordance with law through proportional representation system of political parties’ lists of candidates on the basis of total number of general seats secured by each political party from the province concerned in the National Assembly. Article 51 further says the seats in the National Assembly shall be allocated to each province, erstwhile Fata and the federal capital on the basis of population in accordance with the last preceding census officially published.

For the purpose of election to the National Assembly, the constituencies for the general seats shall be single member territorial constituencies and the members to fill such seats shall be elected by direct and free vote in accordance with law; each province shall be a single constituency for all seats reserved for women which are allocated to the respective provinces; and the constituency for all seats reserved for non-Muslims shall be the whole country.

The total number of general seats won by a political party shall include the independent returned candidate(s) who may duly join such political party within three days of the publication in the official Gazette of the names of the such winners; and members to the seats reserved for non-Muslims shall be elected in accordance with law through proportional representation system of political parties’ lists of candidates on the basis of total number of general seats won by each political party in the National Assembly.

The Elections Act, 2017 says there shall be seats in the National Assembly allocated to each province, Islamabad, and tribal districts and seats reserved for women and non-Muslims, as specified in the Constitution. There shall be seats in each provincial assembly consisting of general seats and seats reserved for women and non-Muslims.