QUETTA: The ruling coalition alliance of Balochistan is making efforts to elect all 11 Senators from Balochistan unopposed with consensus in Senate polls, which will be held on April 2.

The coalition partners of the Balochistan government have held negotiations with each other for this purpose with the approval of their central leadership and they have almost agreed to elect senators on all 11 vacant seats of Balochistan unopposed.

“The parties in the coalition alliance in Balochistan — the PPP, PML-N and Balochistan Awami Party (BAP) — have agreed to this proposal and now negotiations are under way with other parties, including JUI-F in this regard,” a senior leader of the coalition alliance told Dawn on Monday.

Balochistan Chief Minister Mir Sarfraz Bugti is also actively making efforts for this purpose.

CM Bugti says uncontested victories to wash stigma of horse trading

Eleven Senate seats from Balochistan include seven general seats, two technocrats’ seats and two reserved seats for women.

“We want election of candidates on all 11 Senate seats from Balochistan unopposed to wash out the stigma from the face of Balochistan about the horse-trading, which took place in the previous Senate election,” he said.

Balochistan witnessed election of “aliens” in the past electing senators from Balochistan who didn’t belong to the province but won the election by spending millions of rupees.

Two of them elected were from Karachi and many others also attempted by spending huge money but were defeated. These candidates were brought by senior leaders of Balochistan to contest Senate election.

Informed sources said that it has now been decided that 11 seats of Senate from Balochistan will be distributed among PPP, PML-N, BAP and JUI-F.

The PPP and PML-N will get three seats each. BAP is expected to get one seat while the JUI-F is likely to get two seats. These parties will soon finalise their candidates for the Senate election and they will be awarded party tickets.

Published in Dawn, March 26th, 2024