Senate elections: Political parties reward loyalists, hardliners

ISLAMABAD: Barring exceptions, political parties have by and large rewarded their diehard and committed leaders by awarding tickets to them for the March 3 Senate elections.

The loyalty of several of the aspirants is beyond an iota of doubt. They have stood with their respective parties come rain or shine and defended their party’s line regardless of whether it was right or misplaced. Among these loyalists are Shibli Faraz, Saifullah Niazi, Dr Zarqa, Taj Haider, Sherry Rehman, Palwasha Khan, Farhatullah Babar, Karim Khawaja, Pervez Rashid, Mushahidullah Khan, Prof Sajid Mir, Farooq H Naek and Salim Mandviwala.

Some hopefuls for the Senate have been surprisingly left out. They include Muhammad Zubair, Babar Awan and Shahzad Akbar.

It is clear that the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) has given tickets to hard-liners who fully share their supremo Nawaz Sharif’s narrative. In the past, these loyalists had suffered because of their unyielding commitment to the PML-N. In October 2016, Pervez Rashid had to resign as federal information minister. At the time, a statement from the prime minister’s office had said that evidence available so far points to a lapse on his part and he has been directed to step down to enable the holding of an independent and detailed inquiry into the much-discussed DawnLeaks episode. In August 2015, Mushahidullah Khan had to quit as the federal climate change minister following an official statement saying that he had explained his position with regards to his BBC interview in a meeting with Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif who asked him to step down.

While Prof Sajid Mir has his own small party, he has been solidly aligned with the PML-N for many years. He has been sponsored by the PML-N as senator on numerous occasions. He is also a hard-liner and has stood with Nawaz Sharif through thick and thin.

Sadia Abbasi, sister of former prime minister Shahid Khaqan Abbasi, had to vacate her Senate seat because of a Supreme Court decision about her dual nationality. Azim Nazir Tarar is a newcomer as far as the award of PML-N tickets is concerned. For several years, he has been representing PML-N detainees, including the Sharif brothers, in the courts. Tarar has a lot of say in the lawyers’ community.

Advocate Ali Zafar Shah, son of eminent lawyer SM Zafar, is a newcomer in the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI). He falls in the category of technocrats. He had formally joined the PTI last year. He has been giving his independent opinion on contentious legal matters. Dr Sania Nishtar became aligned with the PTI after she was given the federal cabinet portfolio as the chairperson of the Benazir Income Support Programme. Thus, the PTI has sponsored another technocrat.

Dr Hafeez Sheikh is the rare technocrat who could be elected as senator for a record fourth time. He was a member of the Senate from 2003 to 2006, then from 2006 to 2012 and again from 2012 to 2018. Earlier, General Pervez Musharraf and then the Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) had got him elected as senator.

Farooq H Naek’s commitment to the PPP reached its zenith when he had refused to represent his dear first cousin, Khawaja Asif, in a superior court on the orders of his party chief Asif Ali Zardari, who was annoyed with the PML-N leader for certain remarks about him. After relations between the two parties improved, Naek is now defending Khawaja Asif in his latest National Accountability Bureau (NAB) case.

The award of ticket to Faisal Vawda by the PTI has evoked interest and surprise. He is already a Member of the National Assembly (MNA) from Karachi. He is facing disqualification proceedings in the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) and Islamabad High Court (IHC) over the question of his nationality that he has been avoiding since long with the ostensible objective of delaying the decisions.

Dr Humayun Mohmand, prominent hair transplant expert, who was made the first chairman of the board of governors of the Pakistan Institute of Medical Sciences Islamabad in Dec 2020, has also been sponsored by the PTI. He has been an important figure in the party for the past several years.

The claims and counter-claims of the ruling coalition and opposition parties that there is a lot of disenchantment and disillusionment among their ranks will stand the test of scrutiny in the Senate elections. It will become public knowledge how many members of the electoral college have gone against their parties and voted for the candidates of their adversaries.

Fielding former Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani as the joint nominee of the Pakistan Democratic Movement (PDM) for an Islamabad seat will expose the assertions and counter-assertions of the two sides. It is evident that the ruling coalition has a majority in the National Assembly and is in a position to get its nominees elected as senators. The PDM components are in a minority. The slipping away of any votes would bring a lot of embarrassment to the losing side.

In this context, the Senate elections in the Punjab Assembly will also be very important amid reports of disgruntlement in the parliamentary parties with some lawmakers having come out in the open to claim they will stay away from the exercise.

The opposition parties are eying the slot of the Senate chairman in view of the expected tight numerical scenario in the upper house following the elections. They will get an edge over the governing side if they are able to clinch the seats according to their combined numerical strength in the electoral college.