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  • Aug 4th, 2018
  • Comments Off on PTI secures simple majority to form government at centre
Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) on Friday finally managed to cross the magical figure of 172 required to claim simple majority in 342-seat lower house of the country's bicameral Parliament.

PTI has so far mustered support of 174 members in the National Assembly with the help of five smaller coalition partners and nine independently elected members of National Assembly who have joined the party to date. It continues its talks with other smaller parties and remaining four independent MNAs to rally their votes as well.

According to provisional results available with the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) website, the PTI has won 116 seats. So far, nine independent MNAs - one from Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP), six from Punjab and one each from Sindh and Balochistan - have joined the party putting its total to 125.

The PTI will be able to get roughly 26 reserved seats for women in National Assembly - 15 from Punjab, seven from KP and four from Sindh. The PTI is also expected to get some four seats reserved for minorities in the Lower House.

It brings the party's total strength to 155 seats. All five coalition partners - Muttahida Qaumi Movement, Pakistan Muslim League, Grand Democratic Alliance, Balochistan Awami Party and Awami Muslim League - will jointly bring with them 19 seats, including 17 general seats and two seats reserved for women.

It will take would-be PTI-led coalition government's grand total to 174 making them simple majority in the National Assembly.

Talking to media persons, senior PTI leader Jahangir Khan Tareen has said that PTI is in contact with two independent MNAs from FATA and one from Sindh. He also said that talks are in progress with Balochistan National Party and Jamhoori Watan Party. PTI Information Secretary Fawad Chaudhry expressed hope that till the day of PM's election, the party would have support of 180 MNAs.

Although the PTI has attained simple majority at the centre yet on the day of voting for the election of the next prime minister, the current number 174 will reduce to 167 given the fact that all those MNAs-elect belonging to PTI-led ruling coalition who have won multiple seats will have to retain only one seat and vacate the other ones.

The PTI chairman Imran Khan will vacate four seats while Tahir Sadiq, Ghulam Sarwar Khan and Pervaiz Elahi will vacate one seat each.

The Article 91 of the Constitution describes criteria to elect a prime minister. Its subsection 4 says: "Prime Minister shall be elected by the votes of the majority of the total membership of the National Assembly."

The total membership of the National Assembly is 342 and majority can be attained by securing the support of 172 MNAs. However, it does not mean if one fails to get a simple majority, one cannot become the prime minister.

"Provided that, if no member secures such majority (simple majority) in the first poll, a second poll shall be held between the members who secure the two highest numbers of votes in the first poll and the member who secures a majority of votes of the members present and voting shall be declared to have been elected as prime minister," the subsection 4 further reads.

In Punjab province, the PTI is relatively in a comfortable position to form a majority government after inclusion of 22 MPAs-elect from the province - whose names have officially been released by the PTI so far.

In elections, the PTI secured the second highest number of Punjab assembly seats i.e. 123. With the joining of 22 MPAs, the party's tally has reached 145. The simple majority in Punjab is attained with the support of 149 directly elected MPAs.

Here the PML-Q is a partner and it has eight seats - seven won by itself and an independent MPA later joined them. Balochistan Awami Party has also won one seat from Punjab. The PTI-led coalition's grand total in Punjab is 154.

Copyright Business Recorder, 2018


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