PESHAWAR, Feb 6: The ruling Muttahida Majlis-i-Amal and three other parties have decided to put up joint candidates in the Senate elections to discourage the practice of horse trading.
The MMA, Pakistan People’s Party (Parliamentarian), Awami National Party and Pakistan Muslim League (Nawaz) have chalked out a joint strategy for the polls. The PPP (Sherpao) and the PML are out of this arrangement.
In the recent Senate draw, the PPP and the ANP both lost their seats of technocrats. Senator Farhatullah Babar, the party’s spokesman, is a consensus candidate as no other member has applied for the PPP ticket. “He is our only candidate,” said PPP’s provincial chief Rahimdad Khan.
The ANP is yet to decide whether to put up Ilyas Bilour for another term. But insiders say that former president of the Bank of Punjab, Salim Yahya Jan Khan, is also said to be in the reckoning.
The PPPP and the ANP hold equal number of seats in the provincial assembly that forms the electoral college for the Senate elections. In the last elections, the ANP won two Senate seats, Asfandyar Wali Khan (general seat) and Bilour (technocrat). The PPP could bag only one seat, Farhatullah Babar (technocrat). Sardar Ali Khan, its candidate for a general seat, polled only one vote, sparking a debate in the party and resulting in resignation of Khwaja Hoti.
PML’s nominee and its district president Fazal Hussain suffered a crushing defeat although the party had 10 votes in the assembly. As a result Mr Hussain left the party and joined Jamaat-i-Islami the day after polls.
“We are not part of the four-party arrangement. Our leaders are yet to take a decision. Our colleague Mohammad Saeed Khan has discussed the matter with the party leadership in Islamabad”, said a PML woman MPA.
Except for Anwar Kamal Khan, all the PML-N legislators from southern districts are in the government camp. According to political analysts, MMA and three other parties have over 95 seats in the 124-member Assembly. The PML leadership appears to have given a free hand to the MMA in the province.