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- March 4, 2024
- Kainat Shakeel
- 0
ISLAMABAD: The Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) decided on Monday that the Sunni Ittehad Council (SIC), which is supported by the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI), is eligible to receive reserved seats for women and minorities. This decision caused a significant shock. Chief Election Commissioner Sikandar Sultan Raja and the other five members of the commission’s bench announced the split decision with a 4-1 majority. As for the majority ruling, which was reserved on February 28, ECP Punjab member Hassan Bharwana disagreed.
Due to irreversible procedural and legal flaws as well as constitutionally mandated infractions, the ECP ruled that the SIC was not entitled to the quota or portion of the seats set aside for women in this particular case. In support of its argument that the reserved seats would be distributed to political parties that ran for office and were elected using a “proportional representation system,” the ECP judgment referenced Article 51(6). It further specified that the total number of general seats in the National Parliament and the provincial parliament would be taken into consideration when calculating the percentage share of each political party. “For the reserved seats for non-Muslims, the same formula is provided.”
Rejecting the SIC’s argument, the ECP approved the applications of the opposing parties and determined that the National Assembly seats would not remain empty but would instead be distributed to political parties through a proportional representation method based on the seats that each party has won. “[The] Office is instructed to determine the quota correspondingly,” the ruling stated.
In its decision, the ECP stated that it had extended the timeframe for SIC to submit a priority list for the women’s reserved seats. Before the polls on February 8, the SIC had failed to submit the “mandatory” list. After PTI-backed winning candidates joined the party after the February 8 elections, the ECP had postponed deciding on the SIC’s applications for the distribution of minority and female seats. Following their victory in the 92 National Assembly seats, the PTI-backed independent candidates emerged victorious in the February 8 elections, ahead of the Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) with 54 seats and the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) with 79. All political parties, except the PTI-backed SIC, received reserved seats in the assemblies based on their strength.