Pakistan’s Election Commission to Hold Presidential Elections Before March 9: Report | World News – Business Standard

By Liam On Feb 25, 2024

The six-party alliance, which wants to form a coalition government at the Center led by PML-N leader Shehbaz Sharif, has already declared PPP chairman Asif Ali Zardari as the consensus candidate for Pakistan’s highest constitutional office.

The Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) is gearing up to hold elections for the office of Pakistan’s president by March 9, two days before the retirement of half of the senators after completing their six-year terms, it reported Pakistan-based Dawn.

A senior office bearer of the Pakistan People’s Party said, “The president will be elected by the current senators after setting up all four provincial assemblies,” adding that the elections could take place on March 9 or 10, according to the Dawn report.

Article 41(4) of the Constitution of Pakistan states: “The election to the office of the President shall take place not earlier than sixty days nor later than thirty days before the expiry of the term of office of the President: Provided that, if the election cannot be held within the above period because the National Assembly has been dissolved, it shall be held within thirty days of the general election to the General Assembly.

Since the general election took place on February 8, Pakistan’s presidential election is due on March 9, just two days before the retirement of half of the 100-member Senate, Dawn reported.

The Pakistan Senate elections would also take place in the first week of March, Dawn reported citing sources. However, due to the delay in the general elections for the national and provincial parliaments, the Senate elections will now take place in the last week of March or the first week of April, implying that the House of Lords will remain dysfunctional and incomplete for years to come . a certain period.

According to the PPP leader, it is due to the upcoming presidential elections and to ensure Zardari’s victory that the party has stopped its two senators, Nisar Khuhro and Jam Mahtab Dahar, from taking oath as members of the Sindh Provincial Assembly Assembly.

According to the formula applied for the election of the President in Pakistan, a senator’s vote is considered as one vote, while in the Sindh Assembly, one vote will be equivalent to almost four votes. With this formula, Zardari will benefit from the presidential elections.

Notably, Pakistan’s incumbent President Arif Alvi is already on an extended term after completing his five-year term on September 9, 2023. According to Article 44(1) of the Constitution of Pakistan, the President of Pakistan shall hold office for five years from the date of his term of office. day he takes over. However, he will continue to hold the office until a successor is elected.

The senators’ data suggests that the PML-N and the PPP will lose a large chunk of their members – 69 percent and 57 percent respectively, as they will retire on March 11 after the expiry of their terms, Dawn reported.

However, both the PML-N and the PPP will be able to increase their position in the Senate after the February 8 elections. Meanwhile, the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) will be at a disadvantage if it fails to retain its majority. intra-party elections before Senate elections, and it may have to rely on the SIC to gain representation in the Upper House of Parliament.

So far, the total strength of the Senate has been 100, with 23 members each from the four federating units and four members from the erstwhile Federally Administered Tribal Areas (Fata) and Islamabad.

The 23 seats allocated to a province include 14 general seats, four of which are reserved for women, four for technocrats and one for a minority member. Only 96 members will grace the chamber as the representation of the erstwhile tribal areas will end after their merger with Khyber Pakhtunkhwa under the 25th Constitutional Amendment.

This means that 48 new senators – eleven from all four provinces in the seats of generals and technocrats, two from Islamabad and two minority members from Punjab and Sindh – will be elected to the Pakistan Senate, Dawn reported.

Currently, the House has 97 members due to the death of PML-N’s Rana Maqbool Ahmed and the resignation of PTI leader Shaukat Tarin and Anwaarul Haq Kakar of the Balochistan Awami Party (BAP), who assumed the leadership of the Pakistani Prime Minister names.

(Only the headline and image of this report may have been reworked by Business Standard staff; the rest of the content is automatically generated from a syndicated feed.)

First print: February 25, 2024 | 4:02 pm IST