ISLAMABAD: Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) Chairperson Bilawal Bhutto-Zardari said the Senate chairman election 2021 “has been stolen” and the party will challenge the results in court.
“The PDM has defeated the government in the National Assembly and the Senate,” he claimed, while addressing a pressing after the opposition coalition’s candidate Yousaf Raza Gilani lost the Senate Chairman election.
He said the seven rejected votes were cast in favour of Gilani. “Their bias and their biased, illegal decision is right in front of you. Seven votes for the chairman of the Senate of Pakistan were cast in favour of Yousaf Raza Gillani.”
“Those votes were cast properly, legally, constitutionally, but seven senators of the Senate of Pakistan were purposefully disenfranchised and Gillani, despite winning, has still not sat on that seat,” he added.
“Those seven votes were in line with whichever Supreme Court precedents you wish to bring up or the stance or position of the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP)], they were legal votes.”
Pakistan Democratic Movement (PDM) has rejected the result of the Senate chairman election after Yousuf Raza Gilani lost the close contest against Sadiq Sanjrani. The PTI-backed candidate Sanjrani received 48 votes while Gilani could only manage 42.
Addressing a press conference after the announcement of the result, Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) leader Ahsan Iqbal claimed that Gilani in fact bagged 49 votes, adding that rejected votes were cast in his favour.
He said that the senators who had stamped on the name of the candidate on the ballot paper cannot be considered rejected and should be counted as Gilani’s votes. He said that there are Supreme Court and high court decisions regarding voting as well as ruling from the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP).
Former prime minister and PPP leader Raja Pervaiz Ashraf also declared Gilani the winner, saying that the government-backed candidate was defeated despite all the efforts from the government. “Today the parliament was insulted. Chairman Senate has been selected artificially today,” he added.
He said that Sanjrani should ave refused to take up the position if he was a democratic person. He further said that the government’s days were numbered and soon the PDM would send it packing.
PML-N Vice President Maryam Nawaz, taking to Twitter, congratulated Gilani for his “victory” which would be announced “sooner or later”.
