January 3, 2003	Friday	Shawwal 29, 1423

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ISLAMABAD, Jan 2: With the announcement of the schedule for the Senate elections all major political parties have started preparations for winning the maximum number of seats in the Upper House.

The Pakistan Muslim League (Quaid-i-Azam), being the largest stakeholder in the fray, has finalised the names of 162 candidates for the allotment of tickets by a parliamentary board which was likely to be set up soon, said Azim Chaudhry, party’s organizing secretary.

Parliamentary Party leader and acting President of the PML-Q Chaudhry Shujaat Hussain had fallen ill and that was the reason that the formation of the parliamentary board was likely to be delayed for a couple of days, he said.

Mr Azim said that instructions had been issued to other party leaders not to propose or second any aspirant without the approval of the acting president of the party.

He said that a final list of candidates would be handed over to the party chief who would decide about the allotment of tickets. Mr Azim said he was not in a position to predict how many seats the PML-Q would win in the Senate.

The Muttahidda Majlis-i-Amal, which has the largest stake in the Frontier province and good chances in Balochistan, will meet in Islamabad on Jan 8 to finalize the ticket allotment issue.

Earlier, the provincial organization of the MMA had failed to finalize the allotment of tickets in its meeting held in Peshawar on Wednesday but it had forwarded its recommendations for the central parliamentary board’s decision.

Hafiz Hussain Ahmed, deputy secretary-general of the MMA, told Dawn on Thursday that he had talked to Alliance President Maulana Shah Ahmed Noorani in Karachi who had asked him (Mr Hussain) for convening the meeting of the supreme council of the parliamentary board of the MMA to finalize the names for the Senate polls.

The position of the MMA has been weakened by the defection of its two tribal MNAs to the Jamali camp and that defection is expected to cost the Alliance at least one Senate seat in the overall count.

The People’s Party Parliamentarians was looking forward to its self-exiled chief, Ms Benazir Bhutto, for the finalization of tickets, party sources said.

Mr Farhatullah Babar, a spokesman for the party, told Dawn that the party expected to win 11 to 12 Senate seats in Sindh, three in Punjab, one in the NWFP and one in Islamabad).

He said there was a possibility of cooperation with other parties to gain maximum number of seats by swapping provincial assembly votes “without compromising the party’s own manifesto.”

He said some 63 candidates had applied for the Senate seats in Sindh, 35 in Punjab and a few were aspiring for the Islamabad seat.

The PML-N would contest for at least four seats (three in Punjab and one in the NWFP), said its information secretary Siddiqul Farooq.

He said the party tickets for Ishaq Dar and Prof Sajid Mir in Punjab were almost confirmed while the decision on the remaining one seat for the province would be taken soon.