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The Senate for sale?
Rahimullah Yusufzai
Tuesday, March 06, 2012
A senators job is one of the best jobs for which a politician can aspire in Pakistan. It gives him or her an uninterrupted six-year term as member of the upper house of parliament, with all the perks and benefits of a parliamentarian and none of the responsibilities that the member of the National Assembly has to shoulder.
There is no need to run a tough campaign to seek votes during the general election or worry about a particular constituency with its hundreds of needs. There isnt any accountability and still considerable funds at ones disposal to oblige anyone.
No wonder then that there is always a long list of applicants seeking a seat in the 104-member Senate. The leadership of the political parties is put to a test every three years when the Senate election is held while deciding the ticket-holders from among the scores of influential aspirants.
All strings are pulled to seek party tickets. It isnt always merit that clinches the award of party ticket, as relatives and friends have to be obliged. In fact, the easiest way to perpetuate a political dynasty or create a new one is to give a ticket to an offspring to jump-start his or her career in electoral politics.
The use of money to buy votes is frequent and no longer considered unethical. The price of a vote is forever on the rise, as if it were linked to inflation and devaluation of the Pakistani rupee. Buyers and sellers of votes are often known, but it isnt easy to name names due to lack of hard evidence. Once in a while a disciplined political party takes action against its vote-selling lawmakers, but there is no repentance and those deserving disqualification have continued to sit in the assemblies by exploiting legal loopholes. Also, senators known to have bought their seats in the Senate were never made accountable.
The recent Senate polls were important in setting the course of future politics in Pakistan as the ruling PPP and its coalition partners were destined to win the majority of seats on the basis of their existing strength in the National Assembly and the four provincial assemblies. In fact, the PPP and its allies believed that the establishment or whatever that means was determined to ensure the fall of their government before the Senate election in which it was expected to gain an upper hand.
The governing alliance has now got two-thirds majority in the Senate and would be in a better position to ward off challenges to its rule from different quarters and confidently face the next general election.
There are strong indications that the general election would be held in the coming October. The presentation of the annual budget in May, one month ahead of schedule, to allow sufficient time to install the caretaker government for holding the general election, the release of record amounts of funds for development projects and lifting the ban on recruitment in certain government departments are some of the indications pointing towards the likelihood of early polls. By consolidating its position after doing well in the Senate election, the PPP-led coalition would be hoping to maintain the momentum through some populist measures in a bid to win the October 2012 polls.
The March 2 election for 54 Senate seats predictably generated controversies amid allegations of the sale and purchase of votes and complaints of betrayal. The candidature of wealthy independents and the decision by some political parties to award tickets to moneyed candidates from their list of applicants had set the trend for the use of money in the election. Even the Islamic party, the JUI-F of Maulana Fazlur Rahman, preferred to award the ticket to a wealthy candidate, Talha Mahmood, instead of some of its leading clerics forming the core of the party in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa due to concerns that money would be a factor in achieving victory.
Talha Mahmood did the trick by obtaining 23 votes, nine more than 14 MPAs of the party who were his confirmed voters in the provincial assembly. Some other parties also didnt want to take the risk and gave tickets to rich candidates so that they could secure the needed votes on their own. There are even reports that in some cases wealthy party candidates paid-off some of their own MPAs so that they werent lured by money offered by other contestants.
The pitfall of having a less moneyed candidate was evident in Punjab. The only upset in the province was the defeat of Aslam Gill, the candidate of common PPP workers who got 42 instead of 48 votes allotted to him after being betrayed by six party MPAs. The beneficiary was independent candidate Mohsin Leghari, who is a PML-Q man but didnt contest on the party ticket to be able to seek votes from other parties.
The results in Sindh and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa were predictable and the outcome went according to the strategy devised by the ruling coalition of the PPP, MQM and PML-F in the former and the PPP and ANP in the latter. The PPP, ANP and MQM gained the most to strengthen their presence in the Senate.
In Balochistan, the split mandate in the 2008 election was also reflected in the Senate polls. The PML-Q has been the biggest loser in the province on both occasions as its legislators have failed to come together and take a bigger share in power in line with their numbers. The Senate election further decimated the PML-Q strength in the country.
Splits have sapped the strength of the Kings Party cobbled together by military ruler General Pervez Musharraf to suit his political ambitions and its two factions would lose more people in the run-up to the general election. Most of the Q-Leaguers are flocking to Imran Khans Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf and it is hardly surprising because they habitually look for parties that have chances of coming into power.
The weirdest election for the Senate was the one meant to fill the four seats for the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (Fata). It has been reported that votes were openly up for sale in this election. This was bound to happen as 11 tribal MNAs (one seat from militancy-hit South Waziristan is vacant as no election could be held there in 2008) had the authority to elect the four senators. A book could be written as to how this process went along as the Fata MNAs negotiated and bargained for days at a stretch and made strange deals to decide the outcome before the polling day.
The first written deal was that the tribal MNAs would field their own brothers or close relatives to become senators and each parliamentarian would receive Rs100 million from the pool of money collected from the sale proceeds. The initial spoiler in the game was a political party that is seeking to extend its reach beyond its strongholds. It got into the act and tried to seek one of the Senate seats from Fata by offering the tribal MNAs handsome amounts of money. The party backed off on the request of its more powerful and ruling political ally. The damage, however, was done as its intrusion created distrust between the tribal MPs and their deal-making was disturbed. Strangely enough, money was allegedly paid for voting and also for not voting. It should, therefore, not come as a surprise if two MNAs didnt vote in the election for the Senate from Fata.
The electoral procedure for electing senators from Fata is an anomaly. The small number of voters, 12 to be precise, to elect four members of the Senate, is inherently flawed and would surely encourage buying and selling of votes. The sale and purchase of votes in the provincial assemblies for electing senators is also due to the fact that the number of voters is limited. Show of hands has been proposed for electing senators to prevent horse-trading in future. It merits serious attention as electoral reforms are needed to ensure that our lawmakers arent tempted to sell their votes and candidates using money are stopped from becoming members of the Senate.
The writer is resident editor of The News in Peshawar. Email: rahimyusufzai@yahoo.com
how sick is this? legalised corruption!
Rahimullah Yusufzai
Tuesday, March 06, 2012
A senators job is one of the best jobs for which a politician can aspire in Pakistan. It gives him or her an uninterrupted six-year term as member of the upper house of parliament, with all the perks and benefits of a parliamentarian and none of the responsibilities that the member of the National Assembly has to shoulder.
There is no need to run a tough campaign to seek votes during the general election or worry about a particular constituency with its hundreds of needs. There isnt any accountability and still considerable funds at ones disposal to oblige anyone.
No wonder then that there is always a long list of applicants seeking a seat in the 104-member Senate. The leadership of the political parties is put to a test every three years when the Senate election is held while deciding the ticket-holders from among the scores of influential aspirants.
All strings are pulled to seek party tickets. It isnt always merit that clinches the award of party ticket, as relatives and friends have to be obliged. In fact, the easiest way to perpetuate a political dynasty or create a new one is to give a ticket to an offspring to jump-start his or her career in electoral politics.
The use of money to buy votes is frequent and no longer considered unethical. The price of a vote is forever on the rise, as if it were linked to inflation and devaluation of the Pakistani rupee. Buyers and sellers of votes are often known, but it isnt easy to name names due to lack of hard evidence. Once in a while a disciplined political party takes action against its vote-selling lawmakers, but there is no repentance and those deserving disqualification have continued to sit in the assemblies by exploiting legal loopholes. Also, senators known to have bought their seats in the Senate were never made accountable.
The recent Senate polls were important in setting the course of future politics in Pakistan as the ruling PPP and its coalition partners were destined to win the majority of seats on the basis of their existing strength in the National Assembly and the four provincial assemblies. In fact, the PPP and its allies believed that the establishment or whatever that means was determined to ensure the fall of their government before the Senate election in which it was expected to gain an upper hand.
The governing alliance has now got two-thirds majority in the Senate and would be in a better position to ward off challenges to its rule from different quarters and confidently face the next general election.
There are strong indications that the general election would be held in the coming October. The presentation of the annual budget in May, one month ahead of schedule, to allow sufficient time to install the caretaker government for holding the general election, the release of record amounts of funds for development projects and lifting the ban on recruitment in certain government departments are some of the indications pointing towards the likelihood of early polls. By consolidating its position after doing well in the Senate election, the PPP-led coalition would be hoping to maintain the momentum through some populist measures in a bid to win the October 2012 polls.
The March 2 election for 54 Senate seats predictably generated controversies amid allegations of the sale and purchase of votes and complaints of betrayal. The candidature of wealthy independents and the decision by some political parties to award tickets to moneyed candidates from their list of applicants had set the trend for the use of money in the election. Even the Islamic party, the JUI-F of Maulana Fazlur Rahman, preferred to award the ticket to a wealthy candidate, Talha Mahmood, instead of some of its leading clerics forming the core of the party in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa due to concerns that money would be a factor in achieving victory.
Talha Mahmood did the trick by obtaining 23 votes, nine more than 14 MPAs of the party who were his confirmed voters in the provincial assembly. Some other parties also didnt want to take the risk and gave tickets to rich candidates so that they could secure the needed votes on their own. There are even reports that in some cases wealthy party candidates paid-off some of their own MPAs so that they werent lured by money offered by other contestants.
The pitfall of having a less moneyed candidate was evident in Punjab. The only upset in the province was the defeat of Aslam Gill, the candidate of common PPP workers who got 42 instead of 48 votes allotted to him after being betrayed by six party MPAs. The beneficiary was independent candidate Mohsin Leghari, who is a PML-Q man but didnt contest on the party ticket to be able to seek votes from other parties.
The results in Sindh and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa were predictable and the outcome went according to the strategy devised by the ruling coalition of the PPP, MQM and PML-F in the former and the PPP and ANP in the latter. The PPP, ANP and MQM gained the most to strengthen their presence in the Senate.
In Balochistan, the split mandate in the 2008 election was also reflected in the Senate polls. The PML-Q has been the biggest loser in the province on both occasions as its legislators have failed to come together and take a bigger share in power in line with their numbers. The Senate election further decimated the PML-Q strength in the country.
Splits have sapped the strength of the Kings Party cobbled together by military ruler General Pervez Musharraf to suit his political ambitions and its two factions would lose more people in the run-up to the general election. Most of the Q-Leaguers are flocking to Imran Khans Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf and it is hardly surprising because they habitually look for parties that have chances of coming into power.
The weirdest election for the Senate was the one meant to fill the four seats for the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (Fata). It has been reported that votes were openly up for sale in this election. This was bound to happen as 11 tribal MNAs (one seat from militancy-hit South Waziristan is vacant as no election could be held there in 2008) had the authority to elect the four senators. A book could be written as to how this process went along as the Fata MNAs negotiated and bargained for days at a stretch and made strange deals to decide the outcome before the polling day.
The first written deal was that the tribal MNAs would field their own brothers or close relatives to become senators and each parliamentarian would receive Rs100 million from the pool of money collected from the sale proceeds. The initial spoiler in the game was a political party that is seeking to extend its reach beyond its strongholds. It got into the act and tried to seek one of the Senate seats from Fata by offering the tribal MNAs handsome amounts of money. The party backed off on the request of its more powerful and ruling political ally. The damage, however, was done as its intrusion created distrust between the tribal MPs and their deal-making was disturbed. Strangely enough, money was allegedly paid for voting and also for not voting. It should, therefore, not come as a surprise if two MNAs didnt vote in the election for the Senate from Fata.
The electoral procedure for electing senators from Fata is an anomaly. The small number of voters, 12 to be precise, to elect four members of the Senate, is inherently flawed and would surely encourage buying and selling of votes. The sale and purchase of votes in the provincial assemblies for electing senators is also due to the fact that the number of voters is limited. Show of hands has been proposed for electing senators to prevent horse-trading in future. It merits serious attention as electoral reforms are needed to ensure that our lawmakers arent tempted to sell their votes and candidates using money are stopped from becoming members of the Senate.
The writer is resident editor of The News in Peshawar. Email: rahimyusufzai@yahoo.com
how sick is this? legalised corruption!
but I must say bohat sasta bika mera professional leader AitzazEhsan...
