ISLAMABAD: Adviser to the Prime Minister on Finance Shaukat Tarin was elected senator on a general seat for Khyber Pakhtunkhwa in a by-election Monday.
The election was held at a special session which began at 9:00 am and ended at 4:00 pm.
In the 145-member House wherein the ruling Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf (PTI) enjoys a simple majority with 94 seats, Tarin secured 87 votes, four were rejected and five lawmakers did not partake in the election, provincial Minister for Health Taimur Jhagra said.
He was elected on a seat left by Ayub Afridi who stepped down in November to pave the way for Tarin’s election.
Tarin was appointed Minister for Finance for a period of six months on April 17. He needed to be elected to the either House of Parliament in order to continue in his post for longer than the six-month period after his appointment.
But that did not happen and, in October, he was, instead, appointed as adviser to the prime minister on finance and revenue.
Tarin until now was the fourth adviser to the prime minister after Mirza Shahzad Akbar, Abdul Razak Dawood and Babar Awan.
The government had earlier planned to get Tarin elected from Punjab against the seat of Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) leader Ishaq Dar that has virtually remained vacant in his absence. Dar was elected in 2018 in absentia has not taken oath because of his self-exile in the United Kingdom since 2017.
The first priority was to get Tarin elected on Dar’s seat, but a second plan was also in place to get a Senate seat vacated from KP for his election because of some legal uncertainties. The government feared that Tarin’s election on Dar’s seat could be challenged in courts and stayed.
Tarin also headed the finance division in the Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) government and is the fourth finance minister appointed by Prime Minister Khan after Asad Umar, Abdul Hafeez Shaikh and Hammad Azhar had been given the portfolio.
As an adviser to the prime minister, Tarin isn’t able to chair meetings of cabinet committees in view of an Islamabad High Court (IHC) judgement.
Editor’s note: An earlier version of this story incorrectly stated that Shaukat Tarin is related to former PTI secretary general Jahangir Tareen. The error is regretted.
