Senate Polling Underway
Senate Polling Underway: National Assembly hall has already been declared polling station by the election commission of Pakistan. The polling started at 9 am. 52 seats, in total, are active in the election contest from around the country. Rules and Conduct has already been shared on Friday by the Election Commission of Pakistan. Each voter will be given four slips of paper. For the general seats, Green and white slips, for the Reserved women seats, Pink slips, for Technocrats, Ulema and minority seats, Yellow slips are being given. Voters should only use a ballpoint pen.
Frontier Constabulary (FC) personnel and Rangers have been positioned outside the Parliament House to uphold law and order situation. FATA senators are elected by the MNAs from the tribal areas and the Islamabad senators by the National Assembly members.
The four provincial assemblies will vote for their representatives. The FATA senators are elected by the MNAs from the tribal areas and the Islamabad senators by the National Assembly members. 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. The Senate election is conducted through secret voting. It is termed as “preference voting” and done on a basis of single transferable vote. All four provincial assemblies are Electoral College for the four respective assemblies.
Earlier today, Speaker National Assembly Sardar Ayaz Sadiq was the first legislator to cast his vote. It was followed by Minister for Defense Production, Rana Tanveer Hussein and Minister for Parliamentary Affairs, Shaikh Aftab Ahmed. The polling is underway in the National Assembly hall here on Saturday to elect 6 Senators representing Islamabad Capital Territory (ICT) and Federally Administered Tribal Areas (Fata). Other noticeable members who have so far cast their vote included Leader of Opposition Khurshid Shah, Minister for Inter-Provincial Coordination Riaz Pirzada, Minister of State for Finance Rana Afzal Khan, Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan and Prime Minister Shahid Khaqan Abbasi. Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) MNA Shafqat Mahmood told media sources that PTI Chairman Imran Khan will not be coming to the assembly today.