ISLAMABAD: With 11 seats of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Assembly still lying vacant in the Senate, following the postponement of elections on these seats by the electoral entity, the new Upper House of the Parliament is scheduled to meet today (Thursday).

In 96-seat Senate, the present strength of which is 83 members, two senators-elect Faisal Vawda and Maulana Abdul Wasay have not taken oath. The house’s membership can increase to 85 members today if both these senators are sworn in.

Ahead of April 2 Senate elections, the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) took an apparently controversial decision to postpone the elections on 11 KP Assembly seats citing non-administering of oath to lawmakers elected on women-reserved seats in the provincial assembly by the speaker.

Resultantly, KP Assembly remained deprived of its representation on 11 seats when chairman and deputy chairman Senate elections were elected on April 9.

On March 14, by-elections were held on six vacant Senate seats but the candidates elected on these seats could not take oath, as Senate remained dysfunctional following the ECP’s decision to hold Senate elections on April 2, whereas 52 senators stood retired after the completion of their six-year term on March 11. These senators finally took oath on April 9.

The ECP’s decision to postpone Senate polls on the KP Assembly seats attracted strong public backlash keeping in view that ahead of March 9 presidential election, Mahmood Khan Achakzai, one of the two presidential candidates, wrote to Chief Election Commissioner Sikandar Sultan Raja that the presidential election be postponed given that there were some reserved seats in the Assemblies, which were still lying vacant, then. However, the ECP turned down his request and proceeded with the presidential election that Asif Ali Zardari won.

Previously, the Senate had 104 seats which have been reduced phase-wise to 96 seats—with four Senate seats abolished in the previous Senate—reducing the Senate’s strength to 100 seats— and four seats been abolished in the new Senate— in accordance with 25th Amendment that envisages abolition of eight seats of erstwhile Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) in Senate due to FATA’s merger into KP.

Copyright Business Recorder, 2024