KARACHI: 10 withdraw from contest on Senate’s Sindh seats
By Habib Khan Ghori
KARACHI, Feb 23: Arrangements pertaining to the election of Sindh seats of Senate have been finalized. Polling will be held in the Committee Room No.1 of the Sindh Assembly building from 9am to 4pm on Monday (Feb 24).
The provincial election commission has taken special measures to ensure complete secrecy of the ballot.
The Election Commissioner, Sindh, Ahmed Ali Halepota, who is the Returning Officer, will supervise the whole election process.
The EC had provided the facility of retirement through a written note if any candidate wished to withdraw from the race. The EC offices remained open till noon on Sunday, the deadline, and received such notes from 10 candidates. Following is the list of the retiring candidates:
General seats: Javed Jabbar, Rana Safdar, Prof Muhammad Saeed, Noman Sehgal and Muhammad Arif Khan.
Ulema/Technocrat seats: Allama Abbas Komaili, Maulana Abdul Karim Abid and Syed Mehmood Hashmi.
Women seats: Seema Zareen and Naila Latif.
After their withdrawal, there are now 33 candidates contesting on 14 general and eight reserved (four women and as many ulema/technocrat) seats of the Senate.
The strength of ruling coalition, comprising MQM, PML-Q, NA, PML-F, Patriots and Independents, comes to 97 in a House of 168 members. The coalition partners finalized their list of 14 candidates - eight for general and three each for the reserved seats. They are: Abdul Hafeez Shaikh, Mohammedmian Soomro, Asif Jatoi, Justice (r) Abdul Razzaq Thahim, Ahmed Ali, Babar Khan Ghauri, Allama Abbas Komaili and Amin Dadabhai fielded for general seats; Yasmeen Shah, Nighat Mirza and Abida Saif to contest on women seats; and Nisar Ahmed Memon, Begum Tanveer Khalid and Saeed Ahmed Siddiqui to vie for ulema/technocrat seats.
After joining hands in the House, the opposition parties — PPP, MMA and Mohajir Qaumi Movement — has gained a strength of 71 members. They have fielded Allama Shah Ahmad Noorani, Mian Raza Rabbani, Abdul Latif Ansari, Dr Safdar Abbasi, Abdullah, Muhammad Anwar Baig and Karim Ahmad Khwaja to contest on general seats; Maleeha Malik and Rukhsana Zuberi to seek women seats; and Farooq Naik and Nafees Ahmad Siddiqui to contest ulema/technocrat seats.
In addition to these candidates, some other aspirants are in the run without a party ticket. They are Syed Jalal Mehmood Shah, Ali Hasan Chanhio, Deewan Muhammad Yusuf and Munir Sultan contesting on general seats; S. Zahida Zaidi, Neelofer Syed and Sheerin Farooqui seeking women’s seat; and Ayaz Malik seeking ulema/technocrat seat.
The opposition alliance, keeping in mind reports about ‘wheeler and dealers’ manoeuvring with briefcases to seek the electorates’ favour for their favourite candidates, have formulated the strategy to get into the assembly building together. According to opposition circles, all their members were invited to a dinner where they were to be brought under a ‘protective shield’, till the casting of votes, to ensure that they were not influenced by the ‘operators’ in the market.
Although no one in the circles appeared willing to be quoted, they claimed that the opposition members were being offered up to Rs3 million per vote amid the PPP and MMA’s tough grip. They pointed out that some of the MPAs regarded by the opposition leaders as ‘vulnerable to the booby trap’ had been moved to ‘safe havens’.
The Deputy Secretary General of PPP Parliamentarians, Mian Raza Rabbani, has categorically stated that there was no defection by any MPA member from the party. He pointed out that all the party MPAs were present at a meeting held on Sunday evening. He was confident over the legislators’ unquestionable steadfast loyalty with the party and its leadership.
He expressed his unawareness about the reported horse-trading by certain quarters.
About the polling day plan, he said all the party legislators would assemble at an specified place in the morning before entering into the assembly building together.
Under the proportional representation system, the votes in excess of the required number to return a candidate are further divided among other candidates as per the next available preferences on the ballot papers. After getting the transferred votes, the candidates having polled the lowest number of votes is excluded and his votes are also transferred to the next available preferences.
A candidate for general seat will need 11.21 votes and for reserved seats 33.61 votes.
However, EC sources said that the number of required votes for a candidate to win a Senate seat would be determined as per the voting trend and the number of total valid votes.
