KARACHI, Sept 25: With the PPP set to see four of its senators retire from the Sindh Assembly in March next year, the ruling party will seek to cobble together an alliance so that no election is held and its senators, certainly with a greater strength, are returned unopposed, say analysts.

Fifty members of the senate, including 11 from Sindh, will complete their six-year term on March 11, 2012 and an election on the vacant seats is slated to be held on the following day.

The situation with regard to the senate elections in Sindh is clearly in favour of the PPP.

In 2009, the PPP succeeded in forming an alliance with all parties in the Sindh Assembly which led to the unopposed victory of all 11 senators.

Of them, eight belonged to the PPP and three to the Muttahida Qaumi Movement.

They will complete their term in March 2015.

Seven of the 14 general seats of Sindh will fall vacant on March 11.

The retiring senators are Mian Raza Rabbani and Dr Safdar Ali Abbasi of the PPP, Syed Tahir Hussain Mashhadi and Ahmad Ali of the MQM, Abdul Ghaffar Qureshi of the PML-Q, Chaudhry Syed Sajid Hussain Zaidi of the PML-F and Dr Khalid Soomro of theJamiat Ulema-i-Islam (Fazal).Abdul Hafiz Shaikh of the PPP and Prof Dr Abdul Khaliq Pirzada of the MQM — the two senators who were elected on seats reserved for technocrats — will also be completing their term in March.

And of the four seats reserved for women, Ratna of the PPP and Seemeen Siddiqui of the PML-Q will retire on March 11, 2012.

After the 18th constitutional amendment, the election will also be held on a seat reserved for the minorities in Sindh.

According to the party-wise position in the 168-member Sindh Assembly, the PPP has 93 MPAs, the MQM has 51, the PML-Q has 11, the PML-F has eight, the National People’s Party has three and the Awami National Party has two MPAs.

Of the seven general seats, according to the analysts, on the basis of a senate election formula, the PPP will be able to get 4.42 seats and the MQM 2.38 seats.

The analysts believe that following its 2009 strategy, the PPP may again hold negotiations with parties in the Sindh Assembly to get its candidates elected unopposed not only on general seats but also on seats reserved for technocrats, women and the minorities.

In 2009, Maula Bakhsh Chandio, Islamuddin Shaikh, Gul Muhammad Lot, Dr Khatumal and Faisal Raza Abdi of the PPP returned unopposed on five of the seven general seats. Farooq Naek and Rehman Malik got the two seats reserved for technocrats and Almas Perveen returned unopposed on a seat reserved for women.

The MQM’s Babar Khan Ghori and Abdul Haseeb Khan returned unopposed on the remaining two general seats. Shirala Malik got the seat reserved for women.