ECP officially de-registers 25 Punjab PTI dissident MPAs

The Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) de-notified 25 PTI MPs who voted for PML-N’s Hamza Shehbaz on Monday.

Hamza garnered 197 votes, while 186 were needed for a simple majority.

Hamza’s majority has been lost because 25 legislators resigned.

The electoral watchdog passed an order to de-seat these lawmakers last week, saying they had defected from the party under Article 63-A of the Constitution, which bars lawmakers from voting against the party line in the election of prime minister and chief minister, a vote of confidence or no-confidence, a Constitution amendment bill, and a money bill.

The commission de-notified 20 general-seat lawmakers and 5 reserved-seat lawmakers today.

Raja Sagheer Ahmed, Malik Ghulam Rasool Sangha, Saeed Akbar Khan, Mohammad Ajmal, Abdul Aleem Khan, Nazir Ahmed Chohan, Mohammad Amin Zulqernain, Malik Nauman Langrial, Mohammad Salman, Zawar Hussain Warraich, Nazir Ahmed Khan, Fida Hussain, Zahra Batool, Mohammad Tahir, Aish

In a run-off election, five unfilled reserved seats will be crucial.

The ECP will divide these seats based on each party’s existing strength in the Punjab Assembly, thus if the PTI wins the most, it might win the chief minister’s job.

The Punjab Assembly has 346 members: 158 PTI, 10 PML-Q, 165 PML-N, 7 PPP, 5 independents, and 1 Rah-i-Haq. Five’rebel’ PML-N MPs won’t back their party in the CM poll.

ECP removes 25 PTI dissidents

The ECP’s decision to de-seat the legislators came days after the Supreme Court’s judgement on a presidential referral requesting its interpretation of Article 63-A. The supreme court determined that defections wouldn’t be counted.

In its judgement, the ECP said it had two options: ignore the completion of actus reus (voting for the opposite candidate) on the grounds of non-fulfilment of Article 63-A prerequisites and decline the declarations, or hold that voting against party policies was a “serious matter” as observed by the Supreme Court.

“Voting for an opposition candidate is a severe issue and a betrayal of the electorate and party’s agenda, in our opinion. We hold that defection in the relevant situations does not require stringent verification of Article 63-A conditions.

“We concluded that the respondents’ involvement in the election of Punjab’s chief minister and voting for the opposite candidate proved the factum of defection against all of them.

“The statements are confirmed, and the responders’ seats are empty.”