QUETTA: Provincial Assembly Speaker Balochistan, Mohammad Aslam Bhotani casts his vote during the polling at Balochistan Assembly Building in Quetta.—PPI

ISLAMABAD The conclusion of election for half of the Senate on Wednesday lifted a new-look Pakistan People`s Party (PPP) to be the largest group in the upper house after more than three decades, giving it a much-needed tonic to cheer up amid a storm of troubles.

The gains in all the four provinces and the Islamabad capital area increased the PPP`s strength in the 100-seat house to 28 from the existing 11 while a spokesman for the four newly elected senators from the party-less Federally Administered Tribal Areas (Fata) said they too would back the coalition though legally remaining independent.

The share of seats of the PPP and its allies will give the ruling coalition a simple majority needed to pass an ordinary legislation but it will remain far short of a two-thirds majority needed for a constitutional amendment.

Some gains were also made by the opposition Pakistan Muslim League-N (PML-N), which had emerged as the second largest party after the PPP in the National Assembly in the Feb 18, 2008 general election, increasing its Senate strength to seven from four.

The previously ruling Pakistan Muslim League-Q was biggest loser, dropping to the second position with only its president Chaudhry Shujaat Hussan getting a seat and its tally nearly halved to 21 seats from 44, in a reflection of its rout in the general election. But it was still above the PML-N, and the government-allied Jamiat Ulema-i-Islam (10), Muttahida Qaumi Movement (six) and Awami National Party (six).

Other smaller groups will have total of 10 seats and independents 12. 

The PPP could never become a majority or the single largest party in the Senate after the 1977 coup by army chief General Mohammad Zia-ul-Haq that dissolved both the PPP-majority upper house and the National Assembly after toppling then Prime Minister Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, who was later hanged following a controversial conspiracy-to-murder conviction.

The two previous short-lived PPP governments led by Benazir Bhutto remained hamstrung by an opposition majority in the Senate, which must approve every bill passed by the National Assembly so it be could become a law.

The PPP`s new position emerged as the party is facing a political crisis after a Feb 25 Supreme Court ruling which disqualified PML-N leader Nawaz Sharif and his younger brother and Punjab chief minister Shahbaz Sharif from holding any elective public office and the subsequent imposition of governor`s rule by President Asif Ali Zardari in the country`s most populous province for two months.

While bracing for a lawyers` `long march` tentatively scheduled to reach Islamabad on March 16 for an indefinite sit-in outside parliament to press for the restoration of all superior court judges sacked by former military president Pervez Musharraf, the government was shaken by a deadly terrorist attack on the Sri Lankan cricket team in Lahore on Tuesday.

But the success of the PPP`s new leadership in the latest round of three-yearly indirect election for half of the Senate —by the provincial assemblies and National Assembly members on the basis of proportional representation —was marked murmurs within the party about an apparent ascendancy of people who came close to President Zardari for one reason or the other at the cost of diehard party faithfuls.

Some prominent exclusions from the contest were former senator and now presidency spokesman Farhatullah Babar from the North West Frontier Province, retiring senator Enver Baig, former Senator Taj Haider and prominent party figure Nafees Siddiqui from Sindh, and activist Israr Shah from Punjab who lost both legs in a bomb attack on a party camp.

All of them had applied for the party ticket but were refused the honour in what some critics saw as more emphasis on numbers than talent. 

It appeared impossible for PPP stalwart and lawyers` movement leader Aitzaz Ahsan to apply for a ticket in view of the present tussle over President Zardari`s failure to honour his commitment for the restoration of all superior court judges sacked by former president Pervez Musharraf, after refusing the ticket for in the by-election for a National Assembly seat on the same ground.

Another talented party parliamentarian who lost in the National Assembly election from Punjab, Chaudhry Manzoor Ahmed, did not apply for a ticket apparently realising the possible response if he had done so.

Only 19 candidates of different parties were elected in Wednesday`s polling by the NWFP and Balochistan  assemblies and National Assembly members from Fata, while 31 had been declared elected unopposed from the Punjab and Sindh province and the federal capital as a result of understandings reached between political parties largely based on their strength of parliamentary voters.

The election of four Fata senators at the parliament building in Islamabad became somewhat funny as only nine of the 11 National Assembly members from the area cast their votes at midday, but the remaining two did not turn up keeping the Election Comission officials waiting until closing time of 4pm amid charges that huge sums of money had changed hands to buy votes.

But Fata parliamentary leader in the National Assmbly Munir Khan Orakzai denied the charge and instead hurled a similar blame on JUI chief Maulana Fazlur Rehman, who had earlier said it had not been a mere horse-trading but wholesale `stable-trading` in the election for Fata senators at an estimated cost of a billion rupees spent by the contestants.

While Inter-Provincial Coordination Minister and leader of the house the Senate congratulated the new Fata senators-elect at a committee room of the parliament house, Mr Orakzai told reporters all the four men would support the PPP.

Eleven senators each were to be elected by the four provincial assemblies on the basis of  proportional representation, four from Fata by 11 MNA from the area and two from Islamabad by the entire National Assembly to fill vacancies to be created by the impending retirement of half of the Senate members.