Senate elections

AFTER months of fervid speculation, the Senate elections were in the end a relatively placid affair. With the political configuration in the assemblies that elect senators known, there was not much room for surprise about the results once it had become clear that elections would in fact be held on schedule. As expected, the PPP has consolidated its position as the largest party in the upper house. Though it is well short of a majority on its own, when the seats of PPP allies are added the coalition at the centre emerges with a comfortable majority. With a general election due well before the next Senate election in March 2015, the real story going forward may be how other parties aspiring to power will deal with the lopsided position in the Senate. The PML-N, with a dozen-odd senators, will have to contend with an upper house that is overwhelmingly tilted in the other direction. While the Senate was by and large an opposition-controlled chamber through much of the 1990s, the presence of such a significant number of PPP senators could complicate rule by another party. For the PTI, the challenge would be even more daunting: zero PTI senators in an upper house of parliament would force the party into some kind of a cooperative framework, if not an outright coalition, with other parties, regardless of the outcome in National Assembly elections. Were it to be re-elected, the 
PPP would of course be in the most comfortable of positions.

A point needs to be made about the criticism of the elections being stage-managed, with the parties most likely to win seats adjusting their candidates to ensure no real competition. The surprise defeat of a PPP candidate on a general Senate
seat from Punjab would appear to suggest that competition is inherently a better thing. However, the allegations of vote-selling in Balochistan in particular, but also in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Fata, underline the problem of open contests corrupting the voting process. Unless the laws banning voteselling can be made more effective, Senate elections reflecting the party break-up in provincial assemblies may be the lesser of two evils.

A word also on the value of continuity in the democratic process. It was only a few weeks ago that the country was in turmoil, the government seemingly on the verge of being ousted. Instead, democratically elected assemblies have now elected both halves of the Senate for the first time since the 1970s. While Senate elections are no panacea, nor was an early and possibly uncons-titutional ouster of the government the answer. Let the system run and the people decide. Nothing else has worked.