PML, allies win majority of Senate seats

Ruling Pakistan Muslim League (PML) and its allies won 24 seats in the first phase of Senate elections on Monday as four provincial assemblies elected 37 Senators. PML swept the elections in Punjab, grabbing all technocrat and women seats, while the polling was held in a peaceful manner.
The polling started at 9 am and continued till 4 pm. In between, the Assembly was buzzing with the legislators who were there to cast votes. Voter turnout was 98.92 percent. Out of total 371 MPAs (260 belonging to treasury benches and 101 to opposition), 367 came to cast their votes.
Strangely, out of total votes cast, 20 were rejected in the 'Graduate Assembly', as the ballot papers were not properly marked. In fact, among the parliamentarians it was circulating that a member of the opposition had drawn a cartoon against the name of a government-backed candidate.
Meanwhile, in the technocrats seats Haroon Akhtar, brother of Commerce Minister Humayun Akhtar, and S M Zafar of the PML were declared successful by securing 141 and 135 votes, respectively, while Dr Israr Hussain Shah of the PPPP, a joint-opposition candidate, bagged 84 votes.
In the women seats Nilofar Bakhtiar and Gulshan Saeed of the ruling PML were declared successful by securing 135 and 124 votes, respectively. Sajida Mir of the PPPP, a joint-opposition candidate, secured 95 votes. With this result, out of total Senate seats of 11 in Punjab, nine have been bagged by PML and two by the opposition--one each by PPPP and PML-N.
Five PML candidates and two opposition candidates were returned unopposed earlier.
The election results brought quick reaction from the PPPP ranks, since their two candidates lost the elections.
While talking to newsmen, opposition leader Qasim Zia said that technically Sajida Mir had secured 101 votes, but rejection of seven votes on ground of improper marking of ballot papers decreased the number to 95. He said that the figure '101' had gained significance in the elections; since only 99 opposition MPAs had come to vote. This meant that two government MPAs had voted for Sajida Mir. "This reflects the fact that among the ranks of the treasury benches resentment was growing against the government and only government pressure had kept the number low, otherwise the number would have been much higher," he said. According to him, the government had used pressure and horse trading tactics to achieve the desired results. In some cases, the government blackmailed the legislators with development funds, which was also the case in the defection of a PPPP MPA, a day ago. Moreover, the level of trust between the rulers and its MPAs could be gauged from the fact that the MPAs had shown pictures in their mobiles of voting PML candidates to their leaders. This makes the laughingstock of secret balloting.
Aftab, a PPPP leader, said that it was ironical that a non-technocrat candidate, Haroon Akhtar, had been elected on a technocrat seat. He said that Haroon is a businessman and has no technocrat background, and Dr Israr Shah, the losing candidate, had also filed a petition against him. "We would pursue the case and hopefully would get justice," he added.
Elections for 11 Senate seats were held in the Committee Room of Sindh Assembly, and the unofficial results by the close of the voting showed that the opposition got five seats against six won by the ruling alliance.
Provincial election commissioner Chaudhry Qamar Zaman acted as returning officer. In all, 167 votes out of 168 were cast. The only absentee was Shumaila Mirza. She was reported to be out of the country.
According to unofficial results, Ratna Baghwandas Chawla, of the PPPP, and Seemeen Siddiqui of PML won on women seats.
On two technocrat seats, Javed Leghari of PPPP and Abdul Khaliq Pirzada of MQM won.
On general seats Ahmed Ali and Syed Tahir Ali Mashhadi of MQM, Dr Safdar Abbasi and Raza Rabbani of PPPP, Abdul Ghaffar Qureshi of PML, Abdul Razzak Thahim of PML (F) and Khalid Mehmood Soomro of MMA won.
In all, 166 votes were taken out from the ballot box, out of which four were rejected.
Only official media were allowed to cover election proceedings. This infuriated newsmen representing private print and electronic media and they protested against this decision of Sindh chief minister.
Pakistan Muslim League clinched three Senate seats from the NWFP as Amar Ahmad Khan, Saleem Saifullah Khan on general seats and Fauzia Fakhruz Zaman on women seat were elected.
According to the results, the two seats reserved for technocrats were clinched by MMA's Azam Khan Swati and ANP's Ilyas Ahmad Bilour. The MMA obtained one reserved seat for women on which Afia Zia was elected while Dr Shaheena Jameel failed to get berth in the upper house of the parliament.
Four MMA candidates on general seats elected to the Senate were Professor Khursheed Ahmed, Professor Mohammad Ibrahim Khan, Talha Mahmood and Maulana Gul Naseeb. One seat was won by Haji Ghufran Khan of PPP-Sherpao. PPPP candidate Farhatullah Babar failed to get re-elected to the Upper House of the parliament, although PPPP had seat adjustment accord with the MMA and ANP.
Meanwhile, on a number of occasions the leaders of PPPP, ANP and MMA exchanged harsh words with the candidates and supporters of PML and its allies.
APP ADDS: In Balochistan, Pakistan Muslim League won four seats, while its ally Balochistan National Party-Awami won one seat.
MMA finished second with three seats and opposition parties PMAP, JWP, National Party won one seat each.
According to details, Rehana Yahya Baloch of the PML and Sabina Rauf of Muttahida Majlis-i-Amal were elected for women seats. They received 25 and 22 votes respectively.
On technocrat seats PML's Saeed Ahmad Hashmi and Rehmatullah Advocate of MMA were elected.
On general seats Jan Muhammad Jamali (PML), Dr Malik Baloch (National Party), Agha Shahid Hassan Bugti (JWP), Abdul Raheem Mandokhel (PMAP), Muhammad Ismail Buledi (MMA), Israrullah Zehri (BNP-A) and Muhabbat Khan Marri (PML) were elected.