ISLAMABAD: The Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) on Saturday issued a list, allocating reserved seats for women and minorities to political parties according to their total tally in the National Assembly (NA) and the list is dominated by relatives of popular politicians.
Popular political parties, including Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI), Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N), Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) Muttahida Qaumi Movement-Pakistan (MQM-P) and Muttahida Majlis-e-Amal (MMA), nominated women who were relatives of renowned politicians.
PTI:
PTI nominated 16 women members, including Dr Shireen Mazari, Munaza Hassan, Andaleeb Abbas and former Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP) chief minister Pervez Khattak’s sister Nafeesa Inayatullah Khattak and niece Sajida Begum, on reserved seats for women.
PML-N:
PML-N nominated 15 members, including Khawaja Asif’s wife Mussarat Asif Khawaja and niece Sheza Fatima, former minister of state for information and broadcasting Marriyum Aurangzeb and her mother Tahira Aurangzeb, former finance minister Hafeez Pasha’s wife and former Punjab finance minister Aisha Ghaus Pasha, former minister of state for foreign affairs Tariq Fatimi’s wife Zahra Wadood Fatemi, former minister of state for maritime affairs Chaudhry Jaffar Iqbal’s daughter Zeb Jafar and his niece Maiza Hameed and Azad Jammu and Kashmir (AJK) Assembly member Nasira Dar’s sister Kiran Imran Dar.
PPP:
PPP nominated Hina Rabbani Khar, Shagufta Jummani, Shazia Marri and Naz Baloch.
MQM-P AND MMA:
MQM-P nominated Kishwer Zehra while MMA nominated former Supreme Court Bar Association (SCBA) president Kamran Murtaza’s wife Aliyah Kamran.
The NA has 342 seats. Of these, 272 are filled by direct elections. While the reserved 10 seats for religious minorities and 60 seats for women are filled by proportional representation among parties with more than 5 per cent of the vote.
Out of 60 reserved seats for women, the PTI has bagged 28, the Pakistan Muslim League-N 16, the PPP nine, the MMA two and one each by the Grand Democratic Alliance (GDA), the MQM-P, the Pakistan Muslim League-Quaid-e-Azam (PML-Q), the Balochistan Awami Party (BAP) and the Balochistan National Party (BNP).
Out of 10 reserved seats for minorities, the PTI has secured five, followed by the PML-N and the PPP with two each, while, the MMA has secured one seat.
The PTI maintains the lead as tally rises to 158 seats in the NA, followed by the PML-N with 82, the PPP 53, the MMA 15, the MQM-P seven, the PML-Q five, the BAP five and the BNP four.
The notifications have also been issued for 66 women and eight minority members in Punjab, 29 women and nine minority members in Sindh, 22 women and three minority members in KP and 11 women and three minority members in Balochistan.