PDM pulls off upset in race for capital’s coveted Senate seat

Ag Agencies

ISLAMABAD: The Pakistan Democratic Movement (PDM) pulled off a dramatic upset in the race for the high-stakes Senate seat of Islamabad, after their joint candidate Yousuf Raza Gilani defeated finance minister Hafeez Sheikh at the culmination of an acrimonious elections campaign for the Upper House of Parliament.

The setback was particularly large for the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI), because the government’s economic path forward was being charted by Sheikh, who is not an elected representative, and his victory was crucial to retaining him as finance minister.

Before Sheikh was finance minister, he was the PM’s adviser on finance, but the Islamabad High Court had in two verdicts last year ruled that unelected aides cannot run ministries or head government panels. Sheikh was subsequently made a federal minister in December, but the Constitution allows any individual who is not part of the Parliament to be a minister for just six months.

Former prime minister Gilani won with a wafer-thin margin of five votes; 169 votes were counted in his favour, 164 in Sheikh’s, while seven votes were rejected. As the Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) celebrated, the Prime Minister’s aide, Shahbaz Gill, announced that the government would challenge the election. Later, PTI’s Shoukat Yousafzai in Peshawar affirmed Gill’s stance of challenging the vote, called the results a “joke”, alleged money was used in the election and called for the “lifelong ban” of Gilani. He also said the party would investigate how its votes were rejected.

Following Gilani’s win, PPP chairman Bilawal Bhutto Zardari tweeted: “Democracy is the best revenge. Jeya Bhutto!” PML-N Vice President Maryam Nawaz in a series of tweets thanked God for giving “victory to PDM”.

“Fake mandate was snatched back by people’s representatives. Despite pressure from their own people, flour thief, sugar thief, power thief, vote thief, [MPs] refused to vote for Imran Khan.”

She also said the people of Daska took “revenge for the theft of votes in 2018” and “today the people’s representatives took revenge for snatching the election of Chairman Senate. Most importantly, the people and their representatives refused to be intimidated. Counterfeiting can no longer work.”

On the women’s seat, PTI prevailed, after their candidate Fozia Arshad defeated Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz’s (PML-N) Farzana Kausar. Arshad bagged 174 votes, Kausar got 161 votes. A total of 5 votes were rejected on women seat.

Earlier, the polling was held from 9am to 5pm and contesting candidates, their agents remained present in the polling station along with the election staff. Special Secretary of Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) Zafar Iqbal Hussain served as a returning officer and announced the result.

On the completion of counting, the returning officer prepared and certified a Return of Election in Form-56 and candidates and his/her agent were allowed to take a copy or extract from such return.

A day earlier, PTI had called for the disqualification of Gilani as a Senate candidate, after a video was ‘leaked’ on social media, in which his son, Ali Haider, can be seen allegedly speaking about methods to invalidate the ballot paper with unidentified ruling party lawmakers. An audio clip was went viral later on social media, allegedly with Sindh information minister Nasir Hussain Shah’s voice.