Ruling alliance bags five out of six seats in Senate by-elections

• Polling for six Senate seats continued till 4pm.
• PPP's Yousuf Raza Gillani manages to retain seat.
• JUI-F's Abdul Shakoor Khan wins Senate by-elections.

KARACHI: The ruling alliance at the Centre managed to win the by-polls on the five out of the six Senate seats with the Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) securing the majority of the seats. 

The polling for the six Senate seats in the National, Sindh and Balochistan assemblies began at 9am and ended at 4pm.

These six seats had fallen vacant under Article 223 of the Constitution which prohibits lawmakers from holding dual membership. 

The sub-section 4 of the article states: "Subject to clause (2) if a member of either House or of a Provincial Assembly becomes a candidate for a second sear which, in accordance with clause (1), he may not hold concurrently with his first seat, then his first seat shall become vacant as soon as he is elected to the second seat."

Islamabad

In the National Assembly, PPP's Syed Yousuf Raza Gillani managed to retain the seat he vacated after securing. 

Out of the 301 votes cast, Gilani, who was a joint candidate of the ruling coalition of six parties, secured 204 votes compared to his rival Sunni Ittehad Council's (SIC) Ilyas Mehrban who could only get 88 votes. 

Nine votes were rejected during the vote count. 

The seat on which the elections were held today had fallen vacant after Gillani was elected as MNA in the Feb 8 elections.

The PPP leader has been tipped for the Senate chairman's slot.

Sindh

In Sindh, 124 votes were cast during the polling held to fill the two vacant general seats of the upper house. 

After the count, PPP's Jam Saifullah Khan Dharejo and Muhammad Aslam Abro managed to get elected to the Senate by obtaining 58 and 57 votes respectively.

While Nazeerullah and Shazia Sohail of the Sunni Ittehad Council (SIC) were only able to get 4 votes each.

During the count, one vote was rejected.

The seats had fallen vacant as PPP senators Nisar Ahmed Khuhro and Jam Mehtab Dahar were elected to the Sindh Assembly in the February 8 general elections.

Provincial Election Commissioner, Sindh, Sharifullah, acted as the returning officer in the SIndh Assembly.

In today's election the Muttahid Qaumi Movement-Pakistan (MQM-P) and Jamat-e-Islami (JI) — two opposition parties in the Sindh Assembly — boycotted the polling, sources told Geo News without elaborating further.

Balochistan

Meanwhile, in the Balochistan Assembly 61 votes were cast for the three general seats of the Senate from the province. 

A total of seven candidates were running for three seats.

 However, PPP's Abdul Quddus Bizenjo, PML-N's Mir Dostain Khan Domki and JUI-F's Abdul Shakoor Khan managed to win the elections.

Bizenjo bagged 23 votes, Domki got 17 while the JUI-F's candidate got elected with 16 votes.  

These three Senate seats became vacant after senators Maulana Abdul Ghafoor Haideri, Sarfraz Ahmed Bugti and Prince Ahmad Umar Ahmadzai became members of the National and Balochistan assemblies in the February 8 general elections.

Haideri belongs to JUI-F, while Bugti and Ahmadzai were elected on the BAP tickets to the senate.

Bugti, who is now the chief minister of the province, has jumped ship and joined the PPP.

A day earlier, the leaders of the JUI-F and the PPP held talks and decided to support each other’s candidates in the Senate by-polls.

The PPP sought JUI-F’s support for its candidate from Islamabad while JUI-F sought backing for its candidate in the Senate by-polls in Balochistan.