ECP on Wednesday (today) held elections for 37 vacant seats of Senate—parliament’s upper house; counting process is still underway.
Former PM and PDM’s joint candidate Yousuf Raza Gilani scored an upset in Senate elections by defeating Abdul Hafeez Sheikh on Islamabad’s general seat for the upper house.
As per details, senior PPP leader Yousuf Raza Gilani secured 169 votes in contrast to Abdul Hafeez Sheikh’s win 164 votes. The seven-vote difference marks a significant win for PPP and other opposition parties who are jointly contesting the senate elections under the banner of PDM against PTI government.
Counting process for senate elections is underway as the polling which started at 9 am ended at 5 pm with MNAs and MPAs voting for senate elections in National Assembly and four provincial assemblies respectively.
Successful Candidates So Far
Preliminary results have emerged for senate elections as counting process has not been concluded so. Here’s a province-wise list of successful candidates as per unofficial and unverified results so far;
Islamabad
- Yousuf Raza Gilani — PPP (General)
- Fozia Arshad — PTI (Women)
Khyber Pakhtunkhwa
- Sania Nishtar — PTI (Women)
- Falak Naz — PTI (Women)
- Dost Muhammad Khan — PTI (Technocrats)
- Hamayun Mohmand — PTI (Technocrats)
- Gurdeep Singh — PTI (Minorities)
- Shibli Faraz — PTI (General)
- Mohsin Aziz — PTI (General)
- Liaquat Khan Tarakai — PTI (General)
- Faisal Saleem Rehman — PTI (General)
- Zeeshan Khanzada — PTI (General)
- Hidayatullah Khan — ANP (General)
- Attaur Rehman — JUI-F (General)
Balochistan
- Sarfaraz Bugti — BAP (General)
- Manzoor Ahmed — BAP (General)
- Prince Ahmed Umer Ahmedzai — BAP (General)
- Maulana Abdul Ghafoor Haideri — JUI-F (General)
- Muhammad Qasim — BNP (General)
- Abdul Qadir — Independent (General)
Sindh
- Palwasha Khan — PPP (Women)
- Saleem Mandviwalla — PPP (General)
- Sherry Rehman — PPP (General)
- Farook Naek — PPP (Technocrats)
- Saifullah Abro — PTI (Technocrats)
- Khalida Ateeb — MQM-P (Women)
- Jam Mahtab Dahar — PPP (General)
- Taj Haider — PPP (General)
- Faisal Vawda — PTI (General)
- Faisal Subzwari — MQM-P (General)
- Shahadat Awan — PPP (General)
#Live: Polling on 37 vacant seats of Senate concluded and now counting of votes underway https://t.co/C1ypwzYPc0
— Radio Pakistan (@RadioPakistan) March 3, 2021
Prime Minister Imran Khan, senior party leaders from the opposition such as PML-N’s Shehbaz Sharif and PPPs Bilawal Bhutto and Asif Ali Zardari casted their vote for the senate elections.
Prime Minister @ImranKhanPTI while casting his vote for #SenateElection2021 earlier today : pic.twitter.com/BJUlGRzbm1
— Prime Minister's Office (@PakPMO) March 3, 2021
Other notable individuals who casted their vote includeForeign Minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi, Minister for Planning Asad Umar, Deputy Speaker National Assembly Qasim Khan Suri, Interior Minister Sheikh Rasheed Ahmad, Minister for Communications Murad Saeed, and Minister for Science Fawad Chaudhary.
PTI’s Shehryar Afridi’s Vote ‘Wasted’
PTI’s Shehryar Afridi – Chairperson of the Parliamentary Special Committee on Kashmir has reportedly ‘wasted’ his vote in the crucial senate elections after he ‘signed’ the ballot paper by mistake.
Shehryar Afridi has reportedly been reprimanded by PM Imran Khan for wasting his vote via such trivial mistake even after everybody was extensively briefed on voting process.
Afridi had then written to ECP’s presiding officer seeking another chance at casting his vote conteding that he was ‘unwell’ for the past few days and ECP staff had failed to properly guide him resulting in his vote being wasted.
However, his appeal was turned down by the ECP resulting in loss of one crucial vote for the government in the closely contested senate elections.
Jamaat-e-Islami (JI) Abstain From Voting in NA and Sindh Assembly
Jamaat-e-Islami (JI) abstained form fully participating in the senate elections and its members chose not to cast their vote in National Assembly and Sindh Assembly.
JI MNA Abdul Akbar Chitrali and MPA Abdul Rashid from Sindh did not cast their vote in senate elections upon party leadership’s instructions.
SC Allows ‘Secret Balloting’
Supreme Court of Pakistan (SC) had announced its verdict on presidential reference pertaining to open balloting in Senate elections and directed that the voting for the upper house to be held secretly as prescribed by Article 226 of the constitution.
The top court’s five-member bench comprising of Justice Mushir Alam, Justice Umar Ata Bandial, Justice Ijazul Ahsan and Justice Yahya Afridi announced its verdict (4-1) preserving the secret balloting for Senate elections.
However, the apex court’s verdict nullified the absolute secrecy of ballots in Senate elections.
Ballots’ secrecy is not implemented in absolute sense and is subjected to practical considerations among prevailing circumstances in light of key necessities, said the Supreme Court.
11 Candidates Elected ‘Unopposed’ From Punjab
Earlier 11 candidates for senate elections were elected ‘unopposed’ on February 25th last week. These candidates included five senators from PTI and PML-N each.
Elected PTI candidates include;
- Syed Ali Zafar
- Dr Zarqa
- Ijaz Chaudhry
- Aun Abbas
- Saifullah Sarwar Niazi
Whereas PML-N’s elected candidates include;
- Azam Nazir Tarar
- Saadia Abbasi
- Sajid Mir
- Afnanullah Khan
- Irfan-ul-Haq Siddiqui
Meanwhile Kamil Ali Agha is PML-Q’s sole candidate elected for the senate elections.
What’s At Stake?
Senate plays a significant role and has extensive influence over domestic politics as the party which holds the upper house enjoys critical control over law making and other key national affairs.
Senate comprises of 100 seats in total, for which members are elected via National Assembly and four provincial assemblies for a tenure of six years. Senators are not elected and retired all at once. A total of 52 senators (who were elected in 2015) will retire in 2021, whereas the other 52 who were elected in 2018, will retire in 2024.
It is to be noted that this year senate elections were held for only 48 seats due to FATA’s amalgamation into KP (FATA had four reserved seats for senate).
These senate elections were held for the election of 48 new senators from across the country with the following distribution of seats;
- Islamabad – 2 seats
- Punjab – 11 seats (already elected unopposed on February 25)
- Sindh – 11 seats
- Khyber Pakhtunkhwa – 12 seats
- Balochistan – 12 seats
How a Senator Is Elected?
The minimum vote requirement for an individual to be elected as senator varies, and depends upon the ratio according to the total members of an assembly. Assembly-wise minimum requirement for a senator is as follows;
- National Assembly (Federal) — 171 votes
- Sindh — 22 votes
- Balochistan — 9 votes
- Khyber Pakhtunkhwa — 19
- Punjab — 47
News is developing, more to follow.