Daily Times

Quetta: After losing provincial government in Balochistan thanks to a power maneuver featuring 14 defections from the party, Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) may end up striving to secure just one seat out of the 11 from the province on which election will take place on March 3.

Though talks have been underway between PML-N and its allies in the centre – Pukhtunkhwa Milli Awami Party (PkMAP) and National Party (NP) – no decision has yet been taken.

Sources in PML-N tell Daily Times that the party has asked its allies to help it win a general seat, offering its support on women and technocrat seats in return.

However, PkMAP and NP appear more inclined at helping PML-N secure a woman’s seat. A source in PkMAP says that a meeting was held on Sunday (yesterday) to discuss the terms of an electoral alliance among the three parties. The meeting ended without a decision, he said. The NP leadership also met on Sunday to deliberate on the issue of an alliance. For now, both PkMAP and NP will proceed with their own candidates until a decision on alliance is finalised in the coming days.

No senator from PkMAP and NP is retiring in March. Though one of its 14 MPAs defected from the party and joined the PML-N dissidents ahead of the no-confidence motion against Nawab Sanaullah Zehri, PkMAP is still expected to win three seats – one each in general, women, and technocrat category. That will take its Senate seats from three to six.

With three of MPAs having defected to the opposition group, NP can still manage to secure up to two seats, increasing its tally in Senate from three to five.

Interviews with political leaders from both parties suggest that PkMAP is to field Raza Muhammad Raza, its information secretary; Akram Shah Khan, general secretary; and Farooq Khilji, a businessperson whose tribe has been a supporter of the party. Mir Tahir Bizenjo and Kehda Ikram are expected to be awarded tickets by NP.

Meanwhile, a meeting of dissidents and opposition lawmakers in the Balochistan Assembly scheduled for Sunday to finalise a plan for Senate polls got postponed because Changez Marri could not return from Karachi.

Informal consultations have been underway since the fall of Zehri government for an electoral alliance among the dissidents from PML-N (14) as well as PkMAP (one out of its 14 MPAs) and NP (three out of 11), and lawmakers from JUI-F (eight seats in PA of Balochistan), PML-Q (five seats), ANP (one seat) and MWM.

Among other issues, the upcoming meeting will discuss terms of agreement with Pakistan Peoples Party, four of whose senators from the province are retiring in March. Despite its lack of representation in the current Balochistan Assembly, the party’s provincial leadership is still claiming that it can secure as many as six of the 11 seats from the province.

A source in PPP Balochistan chapter says that besides the two outgoing senators – Nawabzada Saifullah Magsi and Sardar Fateh Muhammad Hasni – the party’s provincial president Ali Madad Jatak and three members from Sindh and Punjab will be given Senate tickets by the Balochistan party.

A PML-N dissident said that they would decide in the upcoming meeting whether they wanted to support PPP or to field their own candidates. The only detail decided so far, he said, was that they would not follow the PML-N provincial party’s directives.

Among the 11 Balochistan senators retiring in March, Nawabzada Saifullah Magsi, Sardar Fateh Muhammad Hasni, Rozi Khan Kakar and Muhammad Yousaf are from PPP; Mir Israrullah Khan Zehri and Naseema Ehsan are from BNP-Awami; Hafiz Hamdullah and Mufti Abdul Sattar are from JUI-F; Saeedul Hassan Mandokhel and Rubina Irfan are from PML-Q, and Muhammad Daud Khan Achakzai is from ANP.

The Balochistan Assembly has 65 legislators. After defections, PML-N is left with seven MPAs, PkMAP with 13 and NP with eight. On the other side, there are 14 dissidents from PML-N, three from NP, and one from PkMAP, and five lawmakers from PML-Q, eight from JUI-F, two from BNP-Mengal, and one each from ANP, BNP-A and MWM. Tariq Magsi is an independent lawmaker.

Under the formula for Senate elections, at least 9.2 votes will be needed to secure a general seat in the province and 33 each to win a woman and technocrat seat. Since polling from Senate election will be held through a secret ballot, there is no way to identify defectors.

Besides, the relevant constitutional article – 63-A – is concerned with defections in three instances only: in the election for the Prime Minister’s Office, for the Chief Minister’s office, and in a no-confidence motion.

When contacted, PML-N senior vice president Senator Sardar Yaqoob Khan Nasar said that his party would still approach the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) with a complaint against dissidents if they did not follow the party’s line.

Published in Daily Times, February 5^th 2018.