ECP summons MQM-P factions over differences on Senate elections

KARACHI: Election Commission of Pakistan has summoned the two factions of the Muttahida Quami Movement (MQM-P) on February 27 over the dispute on the upcoming Senate elections.

The MQM-P has also submitted an application in the ECP requesting the internal rift over the intra-party elections to be resolved by Feb 27. The MQM held the intra-party elections on Sunday which saw Farooq Sattar, who heads his own faction in PIB Colony, get elected as party convenor.

However, the rival faction at their office in Bahadurabad oppose Sattar as the party head claiming Khalid Maqbool Siddiqui as the convenor. The worsening rift snowballed into a a leadership crisis and originally erupted over the nomination of Kamran Tessori for the Senate elections.

On Monday, nine of the fifteen candidates of the MQM-P including Tessori withdrew their nominations for the Senate elections. However, the ECP refused the application of Bahadurbad group requesting that the party tickets of PIB group be withdrawn.

The ECP has released the list of candidates for the Senate elections. This includes fourteen candidates belonging to the MQM, including four women candidates on reserved seats.

More than 32 candidates are vying for twelve seats. MQM’s Farogh Naseem was the sole candidate to withdrawn his seat from a technocrat seat. According to the ECP, more than ten nominations have been withdrawn. There are eighteen candidates for seven general seats, four seats reserved for women, and six seats resevered for technocrats.

The Bahadurabad wing had challenged the intra-party elections as illegal, while the PIB group has claimed itself as the legitimate representative of the party.

Therefore, the ECP has summoned Farooq Sattar on February 27 to appear in person or through a reprsentative to clarify on the intra-party election. The ECP will issue its decision if he fails to turn up.