ISLAMABAD, Nov 20: The parliamentary board of the Pakistan Muslim League will meet here on Wednesday to select candidates for the general elections.

Sources told Dawn that the party had received around 3,000 applications for the 342-seat National Assembly and allotment of tickets for almost all national and Punjab provincial assembly seats had been finalised.

Party president Chaudhry Shujaat Hussain, who is chairman of the board, will preside over the meeting, which will be attended by former prime minister Shaukat Aziz, provincial party presidents Chaudhry Parvaiz Elahi, Arbab Ghulam Rahim, Jam Mohammad Yousuf and Amir Muqam, central secretary-general Mushahid Hussain Sayed, Ijazul Haq, Manzoor Wattoo and Sardar Farooq Leghari.

Choosing a safe constituency for Mr Aziz is a difficult decision the party faces because he may not be given the ticket for the Attock seat, which he won in the August 2004 by-election. Mr Aziz reportedly wants to contest for the Kashmore seat, but PML stalwart Maqbool Shaikh has applied for a ticket from the constituency.

The sources said that all outgoing MPs would get tickets, except for constituencies where there was some dispute.

The 25-member parliamentary board will also discuss seat adjustment with coalition partners and ‘like-minded’ parties.

Tickets for provincial assembly seats will be awarded by the respective parliamentary boards. However, the central parliamentary board will issue guidelines to provincial party organisations and will advise them not to pitch candidates against those of coalition parties.

Mr Mushahid Hussain told Dawn that 70 to 80 per cent cases would be settled without any problem because the party would prefer to field the team which had won majority seats in 2002.