Polling underway for 52 Senate seats

The time for lawmakers to vote in the Senate elections ended at 4pm, however, votes can still be cast by those still present inside the assemblies. Lawmaker began voting at 9am across the four provincial assemblies and the National Assembly.

Candidates contested for 52 seats from the provinces, Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) and the federal capital. Following the Supreme Court’s ruling in the Elections Act 2017 case, Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) candidates contested the election as independents.

Rangers and Frontier Constabulary personnel were deployed outside the provincial assemblies and Parliament to provide security.

The opposition Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) is currently in control of the Senate but is expected to be replaced by the PML-N as the largest party.

In the Senate elections, the four provincial assemblies vote for their representatives, whereas the FATA senators are elected by the MNAs from the tribal areas and the Islamabad senators by the National Assembly members.

Election process

The Senate election is held through secret voting on a basis of single transferable vote through “preference voting”. All four provincial assemblies are electoral college for the four respective assemblies.

Members of the National Assembly from Fata (11) will elect four Fata senators, while other members of the National Assembly will elect two senators from Islamabad. The National Assembly has 272 members elected on general seats out of total 342 seats. Of them, 11 members will be required to elect each of the four Fata senators. Half of the remaining 228 MNAs (114) will be required to elect Senators from Islamabad.