ISLAMABAD: PML-N and PPP heavyweights Raja Zafarul Haq, Pervaiz Rashid, Rehman Malik and Chaudhry Tanveer Khan have been allowed to contest the Senate elections.
The Election Commission heard appeals against 15 candidates on Friday and gave a go-ahead to all of them except two.
Those who were allowed to contest the elections on March 5 included Raja Zafar, Mr Rashid, Chaudhry Tanveer, Prof Sajid Mir and Kalsum Perveen of PML-N, Rehman Malik, Waqar Ahmed Khan, Ammar Ahmed Khan and five candidates from the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (Fata) – Abdul Raziq, Syed Muhammed Hussain, Dr Aurangzeb Khan, Muhammad Kamran Khan and Habib Malik Aurakzai.
The nomination papers of Raheela Magsi of the ruling party and Jan Achakzai of Jamiat Ulema-i-Islam-Fazl were rejected.
Know more: Outsiders set to represent Islamabad in Senate
The objection against Ms Magsi was that she had had concealed her party affiliation as she earlier belonged to PML-Q and now was contesting on PML-N’s ticket from Islamabad. She was accused of having transferred her vote after announcement of the election schedule and not repaying a 10,000 pounds loan obtained from the Habib Bank’s London branch.
Nargis Faiz Malik, a PPP candidate for women’s seat from Islamabad, had filed an application against the acceptance of Ms Magsi’s papers, pointing out that she had transferred her vote from Tando Allahyar to Islamabad after the election schedule had been announced.
Nargis Nasir, who was the covering candidate of the PML-N, will now contest the elections for the women’s seat from Islamabad.
Mr Achakzai’s papers were rejected because he had not submitted complete documents to the ECP.
An ECP official said the final list of candidates would be issued on Saturday.
After the disposal of appeals, 161 candidates are in the run for 52 Senate seats. However, the number is likely to drop to around 100 after the covering candidates and some others withdraw their papers on Saturday.
Published in Dawn, February 28th, 2015
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