ISLAMABAD: The Election Commission of Pakistan on Thursday announced that Senate polls would be held on March 3 amid an ongoing controversy between the government and opposition parties about whether the elections should be held through open or secret balloting.
Elections will be held for 52 seats in the 104-member upper house of parliament, half of whose existing members will be retiring on March 11.
The Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI)-led government promulgated a presidential ordinance on February 6 to pave the way for Senate elections to be held via an “open and identifiable ballot.”
The government of Prime Minister Imran Khan has argued that open balloting would introduce transparency into a voting process that has long been plagued by irregularities, with national and provincial lawmakers accused of selling their votes.
Leaders of an 11-party opposition alliance, the Pakistan Democratic Movement (PDM), have opposed the government’s move to hold Senate elections through an open ballot, and one of the major parties in the alliance, the Jamiat-e-Ulema Islam, has filed a petition in the Supreme Court against the Election Amendment Ordinance 2021. The court is yet to rule in the case.
This week, a leaked video showed a number of lawmakers sitting in front of bundles of cash in what the journalist who released the video has said was proof of vote selling in the Senate election in 2018. That claim has not been independently verified. 
Reacting to the video, PM Khan said on Twitter: “The videos showing the shameful way in which politicians buy & sell votes in Senate reflects the total destruction of the nation’s morality by successive ruling elites as they drowned the nation in debt.”
He added: “Cycle of corruption & money laundering is a sordid tale of our pol[itical] elite:”

The videos showing the shameful way in which politicians buy & sell votes in Senate reflects the total destruction of the nation's morality by successive ruling elites as they drowned the nation in debt. Cycle of corruption & money laundering is a sordid tale of our pol elite:

— Imran Khan (@ImranKhanPTI) February 9, 2021