PESHAWAR: In what initially shaped up to be a three-way contest — among PTI, PTI ‘dissidents’ and opposition lawmakers — turned out to be almost a two-way match after the size of PTI’s ‘disgruntled’ faction was effectively reduced to just one candidate.
As of Sunday night, six PTI nominees and five opposition picks were in the running in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa for the upper house of parliament. Late-night reports suggested that two more ‘disgruntled’ PTI candidates pulled out of the race hours after the exit of Mohammad Waqas Orakzai and Syed Irshad Hussain. Khurram Zeeshan was the only disgruntled PTI member, till the filing of this report in the wee hours of Monday morning, vying for a general seat.
Proportional representation
Unlike the general elections, the ‘first past the post’ system (where the person receiving the highest number of votes is declared the winner) is not employed here.
Instead, the ‘single transferable vote’ system of proportional representation is used.
Under this system, voters cast a single ballot, which mentions all the candidates they would like to see elected, in order of their personal priority or preference (1, 2, 3, 4, 5 and so on).
Each of these votes has a value. A quota calculated by the ECP determines how many votes each candidate needs to be considered elected.
The votes received by each candidate are tallied in each count. When a candidate receives enough votes to cross the quota, the extra value of his or her votes is transferred down to lower priority candidates (in the order mentioned by the voters).
The candidates who receive the fewest votes are eliminated and their votes are transferred to other candidates in the order of preference.
The process of transferring votes from successful and eliminated candidates continues until all vacant seats are filled.
How many votes needed?
Theoretically, for the KP Assembly — which has a total of 145 seats — a candidate for one of seven general seats requires at least 21 votes to succeed (calculated by dividing the total number of seats in the KP Assembly by the number of vacant seats being contested).
For each of the women’s and technocrat seats, this number is 72.
Currently, there are 92 PTI-backed members in the 145-member assembly, whereas the opposition’s strength has gone up to 53.
Among opposition parties, JUI-F is the largest with 18 seats, followed by PML-N with 17 seats. The PPP holds 10 seats, ANP four, while PTI-P has three seats in the assembly.
Who are the candidates?
The PTI-backed Senate candidates on general seats include Murad Saeed, Faisal Javed, Mirza Muhammad Afridi and Noorul Haq Qadri. For the technocrat and women’s seats, the party has named Muhammad Azam Khan Swati and Rubina Naz as its candidates, respectively.
The opposition-backed candidates include Attaul Haq of JUI-F, Muhammad Talha of PPP, Niaz Ahmad of PML-N on general seats, whereas Dilawar Khan of JUI-F is in the run for the technocrat seat, while the PPP has nominated Rubina Khalid for the women’s seat.
Based on the late-night reports, among the ‘disgruntled’ PTI members, Waqas Orakzai, Irfan Saleem, Irshad Hussain and Ayisha Bano had already exited the race, leaving Khurram Zeeshan in the race.
Published in Dawn, July 21st, 2025
