ISLAMABAD, March 10: Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz on Friday expressed satisfaction over smooth completion of the last stage of senate elections on Friday. However, he rejected any role of money in the remarkable success of ruling PML candidates and said the elections had been held according to the code of ethics.

He announced to nominate sitting senate Chairman Mohammedmian Soomro and Jan Mohammad Jamali, a former Balochistan chief minister and cousin of former prime minister Zafarullah Khan Jamali, as party candidates for the office of chairman and deputy chairman of Senate respectively for the election process to be completed on Sunday.

He said the decision was taken in a meeting of party president Chaudhry Shujaat Hussain and secretary general Mushahid Hussain Syed with him today.

Speaking at a news conference at his parliament house chamber, the premier parried various queries about the involvement of money in the winning of his party candidates in the NWFP and Balochistan. He said fact of the matter is that voters had cast their vote according to their conscience, which was the essence of the secret balloting.

He said though final figures are still not available but reports so far suggest that the ruling coalition has increased its tally of senate seats considerably.

He said the PML and its allied parties PML-F, MQM and PPP-S had fared well in the elections and gained a comfortable majority in the upper house.

Premier Aziz said party discipline had not been violated and there was no question of moving a reference against anyone.

On being asked about 17 votes in the National Assembly having been declared invalid referring to the threat of the ‘forward block’ which ultimately was won by party secretary information Tariq Azeem by 180 votes, the prime minister said they (members of the forward block) had met him and decided to cast their vote in favour of the official candidate.

He rejected the notion that the MMA’s win on three senate seats in Fata was a disapproval of the government’s policy in tribal areas, adding that tribal members had expressed their voice according to their conscience.

The prime minister, who was accompanied by Minister of State Tariq Azeem and Minister of State for Defence Hamid Sarfaraz, said the election for senate was held in a good atmosphere and gave credit for it equally to the treasury and opposition parties’ parliamentarians.

He termed completion of the senate election process as the way forward on President Gen Pervez Musharraf’s vision of democracy.