The Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) has issued the schedule for the upcoming Senate elections for seats from the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA).
According to the schedule, polling for the four FATA seats will be held on March 3. The returning officer will issue a public notice inviting nomination papers on Feb 7 (today), while Feb 12 is the last date for filing nomination papers.
A list of final candidates will be published on Feb 13.The scrutiny of the nomination papers will be conducted by the returning officer on Feb 15 while appeals against acceptance or rejection of the nomination papers will be heard on Feb 17.
The decisions on the appeals will be announced on Feb 20 while Feb 21 will be the last date for the withdrawal of candidature.
In another development, the ECP also issued the schedule for election on a Senate seat from Punjab, which was vacated due to the disqualification of Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz Senator Nehal Hashmi on contempt charges.The election for the seat will take place on March 1.
The ECP also started issuing/receiving nomination papers for Senate elections from the federal territory on general and technocrat seats from Tuesday.
The commission will continue receiving nomination papers till Saturday.
The total term for a senator is six years and half of the Senate retires after every three years.
The Senate elections depend on the party positions in the provincial assemblies as well as the National Assembly.
Four of the provincial assemblies vote for their representatives, whereas FATA senators are elected by the MNAs from the tribal areas and the Islamabad senators by the National Assembly.
