Pakistan Peoples Party wins 4 of six seats in Senate by-elections

Islamabad: The Bilawal Bhutto-Zardari-led Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) got the lion's share in the Senate by-elections on Thursday by winning four of the six seats in the polls held to fill the vacant seats in the upper house of Parliament.

The polling for the six Senate seats in the National Assembly, Sindh and Balochistan provincial assemblies began at 9 am and ended at 4 pm.

The seats had fallen vacant when the senators were elected as members of National or provincial assemblies in the general elections held on February 8.

Article 223 of the Constitution bars dual membership.

The National Assembly lawmakers voted to elect one senator while the members of Balochistan and Sindh elected three and two senators respectively.

Former prime minister Yusuf Raza Gilani, who was a joint candidate of the newly-formed eight-party ruling coalition, won in the National Assembly, polling 204 of the 301 votes cast, while his rival Sunni Ittehad Council's Ilyas Mehrban got only 88 votes. Nine votes were rejected during the vote count.

Gilani is expected to become the Senate Chairman of the ruling coalition.

The PPP also won two seats from Sindh for which polling was held in the Sindh Assembly. Jam Saifullah Khan Dharejo and Muhammad Aslam Abro were elected by obtaining 58 and 57 votes respectively. Nazeerullah and Shazia Sohail of the Sunni Ittehad Council got four votes each. One vote was rejected.

The Sindh Assembly seats had fallen vacant after the resignation of PPP’s Nisar Khuhro and Jam Mehtab Dahar, who had already been elected as members of the Sindh Assembly.

Separately, the Balochistan Assembly elected PPP's Abdul Quddus Bizenjo, PML-N's Mir Dostain Khan Domki and Abdul Shakoor Khan of Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam Fazl who won by respectively securing 23, 17 and 16 votes.

These three Senate seats became vacant after senators Maulana Abdul Ghafoor Haideri, Sarfraz Ahmed Bugti and Prince Ahmad Umar Ahmadzai became members of the National and Balochistan assemblies in the February 8 general elections.

The seats became vacant when Maulana Abdul Ghafoor Haideri won a National Assembly seat and Prince Ahmed Omar won a Balochistan Assembly seat while Sarfaraz Bugti left the Senate after taking the oath as the caretaker interior minister in August last year and resigned in December to contest the election for the provincial assembly seat. He is currently the Balochistan chief minister.

The total strength of the Senate is 100, including 23 members each from the four federating units, and four each from the erstwhile tribal region and Islamabad.

The 23 seats allocated to a province comprise 14 general seats, four reserved for women, four for technocrats, and one for a minority member.

The Senate has already become dysfunctional after the retirement of half its members on March 11 following their six-year term.

Against this backdrop, the Election Commission of Pakistan had issued a schedule for the election of 48 new senators. The polling will take place in all four provincial and national legislatures on April 2.