ISLAMABAD, March 9: The Election Commission officially notified on Thursday the names of all senators but one elected by the four provincial assemblies. Senator-elect Mohammad Ishaq Dar’s notification was withheld because he has yet to submit his election expenses.
The Senate would gain its full strength of 100 members when a senator from Islamabad and four from Fata are elected on Friday by the 342-seat National Assembly.
Last Monday, the four provincial assemblies had elected 37 senators out of a total of 50 seats, which fell vacant after a draw on Jan 2 this year. The draw gave a six-year tenure to half of the members of the 100-seat Senate and chose the remaining — 11 from each province, four from Fata and two from the federal capital — to retire at the end of a three-year term on March 11.
After the unopposed contest for Leader of the House in the Senate Waseem Sajjad on the technocrat seat, two candidates — namely Tariq Azim Khan of the PML and B. A. Malik of the PPP are in the run from the capital for a general seat.
Likewise from Fata, 39 independent candidates are on the list of contesting candidates: Haji Surat Khan, Dr Abdul Qadir, Maulana Gul Ramzan, Maulana Mohammad Saleh Shah, Abdur Rasheed, Maulana Abdul Rehman Wazir, Akbar Jan, Mohammad Ihsanullah, Ghulam Sarwar, Hafiz Rasheed Ahmed, Fazal Khaliq, Nasir Jamal, Abdul Raziq, Shaukat Ullah, Haidayat Ullah, Syed Shah Hussain, Mohammad Ayub, Mohammad Ajmal Khan, Tahir Iqbal, Syed Sajjad Hussain, Qayyum Sher Mahsud, Mukhtar Ahmed, Khan Badshah, Maulvi Khurshid Ahmad, Fakhruzzaman Khan, Habib Malik, Hafiz Mohabbat Khan, Mohammad Ijaz, Dr Gul Alam Khan, Ahmed Jan, Dr Khalid Mahmood, Maulana Mohammad Jamaludin, Munir Khan Bangash, Ghulam Haider, Said Noor, Saeedullah, Said Aslam, Mohammad Humayun and Mohammad Asghar Khan.
The names of the successful candidates were published on March 7.