By-election for Senate’s vacant seat being held today

PESHAWAR: The by-election for the Senate’s vacant general seat will be held in the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Assembly today.

According to an official of Election Commission of Pakistan, all arrangements have been completed and the provincial assembly building has been declared as a polling station for the Senate by-election.

Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Chief Election Commissioner Pir Maqbool Ahmad visited the provincial assembly on Monday and reviewed the arrangements, said Suhail Ahmad, spokesman for the Election Commission Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. He added that the polling would be held from 9am to 4pm. The seat fell vacant after Pakistan People’s Party (PPP)’s Khanzada Khan resigned from the Senate when his son, Zeeshan Khanzada, joined the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI). The PTI immediately awarded its ticket to newcomer Zeeshan Khanzada to contest for the vacant seat of Senate. He is the frontrunner in the by-election as the PTI has two-third majority in the provincial assembly.

The PPP has nominated Farzand Ali Khan as its candidate. The Awami National Party (ANP) had fielded former provincial minister Hidayatullah Khan but withdrew from the contest in favour of the PPP candidate.

A jirga of the PPP headed by its provincial President Humayun Khan visited the ANP’s headquarters, Bacha Khan Markaz, in Peshawar and requested the party leadership to withdraw its candidate and support the PPP nominee.

The Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam-Fazl(JUI-F) and Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) had already announced their support to the PPP candidate as they argued that the seat was vacated by the PPP and as a matter of principle it has the right to nominate a candidate.

The PTI is in a majority in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Assembly and would easily win the by-election and add to its strength in the Senate of Pakistan from Khyber Pakhtunkhwa.

The party has 95 members in the 146-member house. Balochistan Awami Party has four MPAs while Pakistan Muslim League-Quaid has one in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Assembly.

On the other hand, the combined opposition parties have 44 lawmakers in the provincial assembly. Four MPAs – Amjad Afridi, Amir Kalam, Ehtisham Javed and Faisal Zaman- continue to remain independent.

The JUI-F has 17 MPAs followed by 12 of ANP. The PML-N has six and PPP has five MPAs. The Jamaat-e-Islami has two MPAs in the provincial assembly. Former senator Khanzada Khan was elected to the Senate in March 2015 and the senator-elect on his vacant seat would retire in March 2021 with the completion of six-year term.