KARACHI: Each vote to be cast by members of the Sindh Assembly in the Sept 4 presidential election will be considered as around 0.4 vote since each provincial assembly forms a college of 65, officials said on Sunday.

The Sindh Assembly has 130 general seats, 29 reserved seats for women, and nine seats for non-Muslims, totalling 168 seats.

However, at present the house comprises 163 votes as two female members of the Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf and the Muttahida Qaumi Movement-Pakistan have not sworn in yet.

Pakistan Peoples Party’s Fazal Shah Jilani has opted for the National Assembly, while PTI’s Imran Ismail resigned from his Karachi seat while being appointed as the governor of Sindh.

The election on PS-87 was cancelled on July 25 due to the death of a candidate belonging to the Tehreek-i-Labbaik Pakistan.

“At present, the house comprises 163 members and the total 65 votes will be divided by this figure,” GM Umer Farooq, secretary of the provincial legislature, told Dawn.

He said the chief justice of the Sindh High Court will preside over the session on Tuesday in which polling for the presidential election will be held from 10am to 4pm to elect the country’s 13th president.

The electoral college consists of upper and lower houses of the parliament and four provincial assemblies.

All provincial assemblies are given exactly 65 votes in the electoral college, thus each member of the Punjab Assembly has 0.176 vote, each member of the Sindh Assembly has 0.398 vote, each member of the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Assembly has 0.524 vote and each member of the Balochistan Assembly would be considered as one vote.

According to article 41(3) of the 1973 Constitution, the president of Pakistan would be chosen by 706 lawmakers, including 104 senators, 342 members of the National and 260 members of the provincial assemblies.

As per the Sindh Assembly document, PPP has 97 seats, PTI has 28 while MQM-P has 20 seats.

Similarly, the Grand Democratic Alliance has 14 seats, TLP has three and Muttahida Majlis-i-Amal has one seat in the provincial legislature.

Thus, the PPP has 38.68 votes in the Sindh Assembly, PTI has 11.16 and MQM-Pakistan has 7.975 votes. The GDA has 5.58 votes, TLP has 1.2 votes and MMA has 0.4 vote.

Candidates for the presidential elections have been officially announced by three major parties — PTI, PPP and JUI-F.

PTI, the current ruling party, has nominated Dr Arif Alvi as its candidate, the PPP has fielded Barrister Aitzaz Ahsan while Maulana Fazlur Rehman of the JUI-F is primarily being supported by the PML-N.

Officials in the assembly said the assembly hall would be in control of the SHC and passes to visitors would be issued with its permission.

Published in Dawn, September 3rd, 2018