Pakistan Election 2024: Amid allegations of rigging, all presidential polls are scheduled on March 9

Islamabad: Pakistan is preparing to pick a new president on March 9th, but is still battling to resolve the claims of election cheating that followed the country’s general elections. Two days before half of the senators retire at the end of their six-year terms, on March 9, the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) is scheduled to conduct the nation’s presidential election, according to sources cited by Dawn.

A senior office-bearer for the Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) said, “The president will be elected by the present senators after setting up of all the four provincial assemblies,” and that the election may happen on March 9 or 10.

The six-party alliance has already named Asif Ali Zardari as its unanimous choice for the nation’s highest constitutional post. The alliance is expected to establish a coalition government at the Center under Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) leader Shehbaz Sharif.

Prior to this, Zardari held the office of president from September 2008 to September 2013, after the resignation of Pervez Musharraf, the military dictator.

Article 41(4) of the Constitution states that “the presidential election shall take place within sixty days and not later than thirty days of the president’s term ending; provided, however, that in the event that the National Assembly is dissolved and the election cannot be held within the aforementioned period, it shall be held within thirty days of the Assembly’s general election.”

The presidential election must be place before March 9—just two days before half of the Senate’s 100 members retire—because the general elections were held on February 8.

According to the sources, the Senate elections were originally scheduled for the first week of March. However, due to the postponement of the national and provincial assemblies’ general elections, the Senate elections will now take place either in the final week of March or the first week of April. This means that the upper house will continue to be dysfunctional and unfinished for a while.

A PPP leader has said that the party has prevented its two senators, Nisar Khuhro and Jam Mahtab Dahar, from taking the oath of office as MPAs in the Sindh Assembly due to the impending presidential election and to guarantee Zardari’s victory.

A senator’s vote counts as one under the method used for the president’s election, however in the Sindh Assembly, one vote is equivalent to almost four votes. Zardari will profit from the presidential elections in this manner.

Since September 9 of last year, when his five-year term expired, incumbent President Dr. Arif Alvi has already been in office for a longer period of time.

According to Article 44(1) of the Constitution, the president will serve for a period of five years beginning on the day he takes office and will remain in that position until a successor is selected.

Dr. Alvi is the fourth democratically elected president of the nation to serve out a full five-year term. Prior to Dr. Alvi, the three presidents who served out their whole tenure were Asif Ali Zardari (the eleventh president, from 2008 to 2013), Mamnoon Hussain (the twelveth president, from 2013 to 2018), and Chaudhary Fazal Elahi (the fifth president, from 1973 to 1978).

Consequently, Dr. Alvi is the first president to serve an extended term as a result of an incomplete electoral college, which consists of the National Assembly, Senate, and the four provincial legislatures. Dr. Alvi is also the third president in a row to have a full term.

The PML-N and the PPP, whose members retire on March 11 after serving out their mandates, set to lose a significant portion of their membership, according to term-wise statistics on senators.

However, after the votes on February 8, the PPP and PML-N will be able to increase their combined Senate vote totals. However, if the PTI fails to hold the intra-party elections before to the Senate polls, it would be clearly at a disadvantage and could have to rely on the SIC to get representation in the parliament’s upper body.

The Senate currently has 100 members, including of four senators from the former Fata and Islamabad and 23 members from each of the four federating divisions.

A province is allotted 23 members, of which 14 are general seats, 4 are designated for women, 4 are for technocrats, and 1 is for a member of a minority group.

However, with the former tribal territories merging with Khyber Pakhtunkhwa as a result of the 25th Constitutional Amendment, just 96 members will sit in the chamber this time around.

In other words, 48 new senators will be chosen in the next Senate elections—11 from each of the four provinces for the general and technocrat seats, two from Islamabad, and two minority members from Punjab and Sindh.

Due to the passing of Rana Maqbool Ahmed of the PML-N and the resignations of Anwaarul Haq Kakar of the Balochistan Awami Party (BAP) and Shaukat Tarin of the PTI after assuming the role of caretaker prime minister, the house now has 97 members.

Senators serve six-year terms, although elections are conducted to replace retiring senators every three years, Dawn notes.