[🇵🇰] Pakistan General Elections -- 2024

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Past precedent ‘might hand’ SIC reserved seats in assemblies​

Iftikhar A. Khan
February 26, 2024

ISLAMABAD: The Sunni Ittehad Council (SIC), which is now home to the PTI-backed independent candidates who won the general election, might get its share of reserved seats in the national and provincial assemblies due to past precedent set by the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP), a senior official has told Dawn.

Chief Election Commissioner Sikandar Sultan Raja will chair a crucial ECP meeting today (Monday) to decide on the reserved seats’ quota.

The matter has become of crucial importance since it is being reported as the “bone of contention” over which President Arif Alvi has delayed requisitioning the National Assembly session.

A senior ECP official told Dawn that the council is “set to get its share of reserved seats” in light of a precedent where candidates for the reserved seats were declared successful on submission of lists submitted after ECP’s deadline had elapsed.

After getting 23 reserved seats for women and minorities, the number of SIC members in the National Assembly will swell to 104.

The ECP has so far withheld the allocation of 78 out of the total 226 reserved seats for women in the national and provincial assemblies. These seats will go to SIC after ECP’s decision.

A few PTI-backed independents have still not joined the party to contest their intra-party elections.

Past precedent

The ECP official told Dawn that the commission is aware of the 21-day deadline to call the NA session after the general elections.

He added that the timeline will not elapse, as all assemblies are to hold inaugural sessions on or before February 29, as per the law.

The commission’s law wing will brief the meeting over the question of reserved seats, the official said, adding that even if no decision is reached today, a meeting will be held on Tuesday to finally decide the matter.

“I do not see a problem,” the official said when asked about the allocation of reserved seats to SIC.

He referred to a Lahore High Court judgement in 2018 as precedent in this case. The court held that the reserved seat quota of a party was non-transferable.

The question was raised after PTI failed to submit the list for minorities’ reserved seats in Punjab and did so after LHC’s hearing.

The case had gone to court after the returning officer refused to accept PTI’s lists of candidates for women and minorities’ seats due to a one-day delay in submission of the candidates’ names.

There is also a precedent of Balochistan Awami Party (BAP) getting a reserved seat for women in KP Assembly after the first post-merger elections in the erstwhile Fata.

The party didn’t contest the election in the province, but independents joined it, handing BAP a reserved seat for women.

Out of the total 60 reserved seats for women in the National Assembly, ECP has so far allocated 40 to different political parties.

These include 20 out of 32 of Punjab, two out of 10 of KP, all 14 of Sindh and all four of Balochistan.

Seven out of ten seats reserved for minorities have also been allocated.

In the Sindh Assembly, 27 out of 29 seats reserved for women and eight out of nine for minorities have been allocated.

Five out of 26 reserved seats for women and one out of four for minorities have been allocated in the KP assembly. In the Balochistan Assembly, all 11 reserved seats for women and three for minorities have been allocated.

 

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Punjab Assembly: Maryam becomes Pakistan’s first female CM, says she has no desire to ‘seek revenge’​

Wins chief minister's election with 220 votes against SIC's Rana Aftab Ahmad; Governor Balighur Rehman administers oath to Maryam.

 

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With only three days left in the constitution-mandated deadline to summon the session of the National Assembly, President Arif Alvi has come under severe criticism from the political parties, particularly the PPP and the PML-N, for resorting to delaying tactics instead of convening the session of the lower house of parliament.

Sources in the Prime Minister’s Office confirmed that a summary requisitioning the session of the assembly was sent to the president by the parliamentary affairs division four days ago, but there has been no official response from President Alvi.

A National Assembly Secretariat official said the president was bound to summon the session within 21 days and if he failed to do so, then the NA secretariat could bypass him and summon the session under Article 91(2) of the Constitution. The official said the secretariat had already made necessary arrangements for the new assembly’s session.

Some reports claimed that the president may not call the session till the notification of the women lawmakers of the Sunni Ittehad Council (SIC) on reserved seats. However, sources in the presidency were clueless about the decision on the summary.

At present, the Election Commission of Pakistan has yet to issue a notification on 20 seats reserved for women and three seats reserved for non-Muslim lawmakers. The PTI-backed independents who joined the SIC — which did not have any seats in NA — have 92 seats in the lower house. It may be noted a member of the SIC won one seat as an independent candidate.

 

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Alvi attracts flak

PML-N and PPP leaders criticised the president for not summoning the session. PPP leader Shazia Marri said the president should not abuse his constitutional powers.

“President Alvi should not be loyal to an individual but the Constitution,” she said, adding if the president did not summon the session within the prescribed period his name then will be remembered among the violators of the Constitution.

Speaking to reporters in Lahore, PML-N Senator Ishaq Dar said that summoning the National Assembly session by Feb 29 was mandatory under the Constitution.

“A session of the elected assembly has to be summoned within 21 days from the polling day as per the Constitution. As polling had been held on Feb 8, it is mandatory to convene the new house of the National Assembly by Feb 29,” he said while talking to the media on the Punjab Assembly premises in Lahore.

The former finance minister said it is expected that the maiden National Assembly session would be summoned for Feb 27 as the parliamentary affairs minister had sent a summary for the purpose on Feb 21, but President Arif Alvi had not signed the document.

He said if President Alvi did not call the session by Feb 29, the outgoing speaker, Pervaiz Ashraf, would do so to comply with the constitutional requirement.

 

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The situation in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, where the governor was also not summoning the provincial assembly session, the PML-N leader said the case was also identical to the National Assembly.

“As general election has been held on Feb 8 simultaneously across the country, sessions of all the newly-elected assemblies must be convened by Feb 29 whether the President or Governor, whatever the case may be, summons a session or not.”

PML-N Senator Irfan Siddiqui said the president was serving on borrowed time as his tenure had already expired. He added Dr Alvi should not leave the presidency with another blot to his credit that he had not met the constitutional obligation of summoning the NA session within the prescribed timeline.

 

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Murad elected Sindh CM​

Feb 26,
Syed Murad Ali Shah was elected the chief minister of Sindh on Monday after comfortably securing a lead against MQM-P's Ali Khurshidi.

Murad, chief executive of the province for the third time now, secured 112 votes compared to Khurshidi's 36. A total of 148 votes were cast during polling.

 

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PML-N agrees on names for Balochistan key slots​

Party to nominate Sheikh Jaffar Mandokhail for governor’s post, Rahila Durrani for PA speaker

 

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No truth to rumours regarding appointment of governors by PPP, says Sherry Rehman​

Senator Sherry Rehman has said that there is no truth to rumours circulating on various social media platforms regarding the PPP appointing the provincial governors.
“The process of shortlisting and finalising the names for governors of provinces will be done by Asif Ali Zardari himself once he assumes the presidency,” she said in a statement.

 

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67 winning candidates out of 114 to become members of KP Assembly for first time​

Approximately 67 out of the 114 candidates announced by the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) are set to assume their roles as first-time members of the Provincial Assembly (MPAs) in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, APP reports.

According to data released by ECP KP, 67 new MPAs belong to 13 districts of the province. While 47 winning candidates have remained MPAs in previous terms.

The ECP KP has issued notifications for 114 winning candidates out of the total 145 members. The assembly will be finalized with notifications for the remaining 31 members.

Among these new MPAs, the maximum are from the Peshawar district where electorates choose 11 fresh ca

 

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ANP to back PPP in Senate, presidential election​

Feb 26, 2024
Newly-elected members of the Balochistan Assembly from the Awami National Party (ANP) have pledged their support to Co-Chairman of the Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP), Asif Ali Zardari.

Senators Zamarud Khan, Dawood Khan, and Nawabzada Umar Farooq made the announcement during a meeting with the former president.

According to a press release issued by the PPP secretariat, the ANP delegates affirmed their backing for Zardari in both the Senate and presidential elections.

Additionally, Zamarud Khan, Member of the Provincial Assembly (MPA), declared his party's support for the PPP in the formation of the government in Balochistan.

The ANP also announced to play a more dynamic role in government formation in Balochistan. Ali Madad Jattak and Mir Ali Hasan Brohi were also present on the occasion.