September 06, 2008	Saturday	Ramazan 05, 1429

KARACHI, Sept 5: In Sindh, where polling for the presidential elections will begin at 10am and continue till 3pm on Saturday, of Asif Ali Zardari is expected to romp to victory.

The polling, which will be presided over by Sindh High Court Chief Justice Anwar Zaheer Jamali, will be held in Committee Room No-1 of the Sindh Assembly building.

The PPP co-chairman is likely to bag between 60 and 64 votes out of the total 65 of the electoral college from Sindh. One missing vote from the electoral college is due to want of notification of two seats of the assembly which comprises over 168 MPAs. The two members, whose result notifications have not been issued so far, are from Thatta district PS-87 and a minority reserved seat.

Mr Zardari’s election will set a new record of mustering sweeping victory from all three provinces – Sindh, the NWFP, and Balochistan. Punjab will be the only exception where he will not have easy sailing as PML-N after parting ways from the PPP has fielded its own candidate, Justice Saeed-uz-Zaman Siddqiui, for the presidential elections.

In the triangular fight for the highest office in the country, the third running candidate is Mushahid Hussain Syed from the PML-Q. Perhaps he would be the hard luck candidate who despite having eight votes of his party would fail to get a single vote like that of PML-N candidate which has no representation in the Sindh Assembly.

The party position in the Sindh Assembly is as follows: PPP — 93 (electoral votes 36), MQM — 51 (electoral votes 20), ANP — two (electoral vote one), PML-F — eight (electoral votes three), PML-Q — five (electoral votes two), PML-Q (forward) — four (electoral vote one) and NPP — three (electoral vote one).

Besides the PPP and MQM which had proposed Mr Zardari’s name for the office of presidency, the ANP and PML-Q (forward) have so far announced that they will back Mr Zardari, while the NPP has decided to support him after their successful talks with the PPP top leadership.

The PML-F is the only party in Sindh whose chief Pir Pagara has made it clear that his party legislators would neither cast their vote in favour of Mr Zardari nor would they oppose his candidature.

One out of total five MPAs of the PML-Q has slipped into the camp of the forward bloc. Shaheryar Mehar has reportedly decided to cast his vote for Mr Zardari.

Dr Arbab Ghulam Rahim is out of the country while his three colleagues Razzaq Rahimoo, Nuzhat Pathan and Arbab Zulfiqar till filing of this report had decided not to cast their vote.

Sources said when PML-F parliamentary party chief Jam Madad Ali on Friday called on his party chief Pir Pagara to seek guidance, he was conveyed the reply as was given to Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani who last week called on him (Pir Pagara) at the Kingri House to muster his support for Mr Zardari.

If a last-minute change of heart does not take place that — looks impossible in the given situation — Mr Zardari’s votes would come down from 64 to 60, according to political analysts.

According to the formula as mentioned in the constitution for presidential election, members of the senate, national assembly would each have one vote while in case of the assemblies the strength of presidential voters in each assembly would be equal to the single smallest assembly. At present in the country the smallest assembly is Balochistan with a total of 65 seats. If this number is calculated with total strength of the Sindh assembly 168, each electoral vote for the presidential polling would be equal to 2.58 votes.