Zulfi Bukhari, Shahzad Akbar, Hafeez Shaikh among candidates recommended for PTI Senate ticket

As the Senate elections loom near, the PTI is currently finalising the list of candidates who it thinks should be given the ticket to contest the polls.

The ruling party's parliamentary board has finalised the names of the candidates and sent its recommendations to Prime Minister Imran Khan.

The parliamentary board has suggested that Shahzad Akbar, Zulfi Bokhari, Sania Nishtar, Abdul Razzak Dawood, Babar Awan, Saifullah Niazi, Dr Zarqa and Nilofar Bakhtiar be awarded the tickets for the Senate elections.

From Khyber Pakhtukhwa, the party has decided to nominate Shibli Faraz again. The names of advisor to the prime minister on Finance, Dr Abdul Hafeez Shaikh and Kamil Ali Agha from the coalition parties have been recommended, said sources.

PM Imran Khan will approve the names of the board within a few days, said sources.

Article 92 of the constitution puts a cap on the number of Senators who can be appointed as ministers. The article reads: “Federal Ministers and Ministers of State who are members of the Senate shall not at any time exceed one-fourth of the number of Federal Ministers.”

Thus, there cannot be more than seven Senators in the cabinet.

As of now, three Senators have been appointed ministers – Dr. Mohammad Farogh Naseem, Syed Shibli Faraz and Azam Khan Swati. The government can only name four more Senators as ministers, as per the Constitution.

The Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) has announced to release the schedule for the Senate election on February 11.

It has started distributing nomination papers to prospective candidates.

Nomination papers for the two seats of the Federal Capital Territory can be taken from the ECP Secretariat at the Constitutional Avenue in Islamabad, while nomination papers for provincial seats are available at the offices of the concerned provincial election commissioner.

ECP has advised all political parties and candidates to attach party tickets while submitting nomination papers.

Independent candidates, however, cannot attach party tickets.

Candidates have been asked to set up a special account for this purpose at any branch of any scheduled bank for their election expenses and mention the account number on their nomination papers.

The limit of election expenses for a candidate is fixed at Rs 1.5 million.