Senate election starts on Friday

ISLAMABAD: Regional lawmakers on Friday began casting their votes for members of the Senate, the indirectly-elected upper house of the federal parliament, officials said.

Each of Pakistan's four provinces will have 23 seats in the 104-member next senate, with four going to the capital Islamabad and eight for the tribal areas in the northwest.

Some of the places are reserved for non-Muslim minorities, women, and Islamic scholars or technocrats.

"Polling has started at all four provincial assemblies and at the parliament house in Islamabad," an official of the Election Commission of Pakistan told AFP.

Half the senate's current 100 members retire on March 12 after completing their six-year terms, and the four non-Muslim minority places are an expansion of the chamber being chosen for the first time.

At least nine candidates were elected unopposed, the official said, leaving 45 seats being contested.

Pakistani parliamentary elections are due in 2013, but opposition parties have called for early polls, blaming the government of President Asif Ali Zardari for corruption, economic decay, and a severe energy crisis.

Copyright AFP (Agence France-Presse), 2012