All the guessing games whether or not this government would survive to hold the Senate elections came to an end with the successful completion of the exercise on Friday. The results held no surprises except in Punjab where a confident PPP candidate, Aslam Gill, faced defeat and a Q League defector, Mohsin Leghari, achieved unanticipated victory with the backing of the PML-N, which achieved the double satisfaction of having him win and causing humiliation to the Chaudharies of Gujrat. As expected, the PPP emerged as the single largest party in the Senate, raising its strength from 27 to 41 seats, and the PML-N finished a distant second bagging eight seats to up its total from the previous seven (one member is to retire) to 14, followed by ANP, which boosted its strength in Senate to 12 members. The ANP, it seems, has increasingly occupied the territory that once belonged to the then Muttahida Majlis-e-Amal, the alliance of politico-religious parties, that had made highly significant gains in the 2002 general election. Barring JUI-F, which almost doubled its strength from 4 to 7 in the upper house, religious parties have nevertheless reduced their representation following the end of term of both of JI Senators-Professor Mohammad Ibrahim Khan and Professor Khurshid Ahmad. Moreover, the Q League suffered a significant setback as its Senators' number came down from 21 to 5. The 2012 Senate elections have thrown up a formidable challenge to Tehrik-e-Insaf, a party which arguably enjoys better prospects in the upcoming general election than any other party after the rallies organised by it saw a highly unprecedented participation of people in almost all the major towns of country. How Imran Khan will reconcile with the fact that his party has no senator in the upper house even if he's able to get a two-thirds majority in the lower house of the parliament is a question that requires him to reinvent his strategy ahead of upcoming general election: pre- and post-election alliance with a party or parties that have significant representation in the upper house. Here we take the liberty of underscoring the need for both Tehrik-e-Insaf and the MQM-the two parties that are strongly committed to fighting against the shrinking space and opportunities for middle class in the country- to reach understanding on a broad range of issues provided the latter undertakes to renounce-a demand that Imran Khan has repeatedly made-politics of militancy. Losses and wins aside, it is a measure of the political parties' maturity that the elections were held on time, lending the vital element of continuity to the democratic process. Until last December conspiracy theorists worked overtime to predict that the PPP government would not survive the various scandals and schemes to bring its tenure to an abrupt end. Credit is due to both the government for remaining resolute in the face of threats; and the main opposition party, the Nawaz League, for not becoming-unlike in the past-a part of any scheme to derail the democratic system, although Nawaz Sharif made a highly controversial decision to become the principal petitioner in the Memogate scandal. Slowly but surely the system is finding its feet. Following the conclusion of the Senate elections, the PPP-led coalition government has to select the deputy chairman of the upper house. An appropriate response to the situation in which its main coalition partners-PML-Q and ANP-have laid claim to the deputy chairman's slot will certainly contribute towards strengthening the nascent democratic process. That both the coalition partners have underscored the need for selection of a Senator from Balochistan on this post is a fact that clearly and unambiguously demonstrates strong appreciation of gravity of situation on the part of our political parties. Nonetheless, some things need to change. A particularly unsavoury aspect of the Senate elections was the sale and purchase of votes in the provincial assemblies, the Senate electoral college. This went on openly in the Balochistan Assembly where Pir Abdul Qadir Gilani, a Q League MPA and son-in-law of former chief minister Balochistan Jam Mir Mohammad Yousuf, announced his support for the PPP at a press conference, saying he would get a big amount of money as 'development funds' in return for the Senate vote. Stories are galore of other legislators having been paid fat sums to cast their votes for one or the other party's candidate. This is a mockery of democracy. Needless to say, legislators are chosen to serve the people, not to use their position as a money making enterprise. The Election Commission must take notice of all these cases, and hold thorough investigations. Anyone found selling or buying the votes must be duly punished.
Copyright Business Recorder, 2012
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