ECP suspends lawmakers elected on reserved seats

ISLAMABAD: After the Supreme Court verdict on reserved seats, the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) on Monday suspended the lawmakers elected on seats denied to the Sunni Ittehad Council (SIC).

According to the notification issued here, 44 members of ruling PML-N have been suspended while 15 lawmakers from PPP, 13 from Jamiat Ulama-e-Islam Fazl (JUI-F) and one each from MQM-P, Istehkam-e-Pakistan Party, and Awami National Party, Pakistan Muslim League and Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf Parliamentarians.

In KP Assembly, 21 lawmakers on reserved seats for women and 4 for minorities have been de-notified.

In the Punjab Assembly, 24 women lawmakers and 3 non-Muslim legislators have been de-notified. While in the Sindh Assembly, the commission de-notified 2 female lawmakers and a minority member.

On May 7, a three-member SC bench led by Justice Syed Mansoor Ali Shah suspended the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) and Peshawar High Court’s (PHC) verdict on Sunni Ittehad Council (SIC) reserved seats.

Shah said that suspension verdict only applies to the allocation of additional seats. He emphasized that the people’s mandate should be represented correctly in Parliament.

Reserved seats

The election commission distributed the reserved seats for women and minorities among other political parties.

In the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Assembly – according to a notification, the ECP allocated one reserved seat each to Jamiat Ulema-i-Islam Pakistan, Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) and Pakistan People’s Party (PPP).

In Sindh Assembly – allocated reserved seat for women to Muttahida Qaumi Movement-Pakistan (MQM-P) and PPP. PPP’s Samita Afzal and MQM-P’s Fouzia Hameed elected on reserved seats.

Furthermore, PPP’s Sadhu Mal alias Surinder Valasai secured minority seat in Sindh Assembly.

The ECP allocated three reserved seats for minorities to PML-N, PPP and JUI-F – which were claimed by Sunni Ittehad Council. PML-N’s Neelam Meghwar, PPP’s Ramesh Kumar and JUI-F’s James Iqbal were elected on the minority seats.

SIC reserved seats

PTI candidates contested the elections as independents after the Supreme Court upheld the election supervisor’s decision, considering its intra-party polls “unconstitutional” and revoked its claim on the electoral symbol of ‘bat’.

As per the Constitution, the reserved seats are allocated to the political parties on the basis of the number of their lawmakers elected on the general seats. For their allocation, the ECP had already received the priority list of candidates from the parties before the Feb 8 polls.

The situation this year is different from the previous elections as the largest group of lawmakers are independents, who cannot have the reserved seats.

There are a total of 346 reserved seats for women – 60 in the NA and 66, 29, 26, and 11 in the provincial legislatures of Punjab, Sindh, K-P, and Balochistan.

Similarly, there are 10 reserved seats for minorities in the lower house. Besides, eight, nine and three reserved seats for minorities in the Punjab Sindh, and Balochistan assemblies respectively.