The election arena for the 37 seats of the Senate of Pakistan (Upper House) will be held today.
Candidates for all the 11 seats in Punjab have been elected unopposed, while 2 seats in Islamabad, 12 in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, 11 in Sindh and 12 in Balochistan will be voted tomorrow.
Members of the Provincial Assembly will cast their votes in the provincial seats and members of the National Assembly in the two seats in Islamabad from 9 am to 5 pm.
In all, there are 39 candidates in the general seats, 18 in the women’s seats, 13 in the technocrat seats and eight in the minority seats.
The most interesting and big battle of the Senate elections will be at the general seat of the federal capital Islamabad where former Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani and Finance Minister Abdul Hafeez Sheikh are competing against each other.
The ruling coalition has 181 seats, while the opposition parties have 160 seats.
In the Senate election, there will be a contest for the seat of a general and a woman in Islamabad, while the lower house, the National Assembly, will become the polling station.
‘Elections will be by secret ballot according to old procedure’
The Election Commission has said that the Senate elections will be held by secret ballot under the old constitution and law.
According to a statement issued by the Election Commission, the Commission has decided to fully implement the opinion of the Supreme Court for the Senate elections.
The statement said that the Supreme Court had said that according to the Constitution, Senate elections are held by secret ballot and the Election Commission has a constitutional responsibility to stop corrupt practices in Senate elections. Elections will be held under the old procedure under the current constitution and law.
On the other hand, the Lahore accountability court has given permission to National Assembly members Shahbaz Sharif and Khawaja Asif, arrested by NAB, to go to Islamabad to cast their votes.