By Editor Foreign Affairs
Islamabad : Pakistan faced significant embarrassment as it lost the election of President of the Inter-Parliamentary Union (IPU) during the ongoing virtual session of the IPU Governing Council amid strong lobbying over the last few months.
Pakistani Senate Speaker Muhammad Sadiq Sanjrani lost Portuguese Speaker Duarte Pacheco, who was elected Speaker of the IPU for a three-year term, beating candidates from Pakistan, Uzbekistan (Akmal Saidov, First Deputy Speaker of the Legislative Chamber) and Canada (Salma Ataullahjan, Senator).
The Portuguese candidate Pacheco won 222 votes, well above the total majority of 198, while the Pakistani candidate won just 52 votes, ET consistently won. Elections were conducted safely via the online media.
Pakistani Senate President had traveled extensively to his candidacy and had also traveled to a few countries to campaign.
He even tried, by his own admission, to contact the other three candidates, but he could not even get a reply, it is understood.
It is common practice to ensure a daily rotation between geopolitical groups when electing a president. The outgoing President is Gabriela Cuevas Barron, a Mexican MP, who was elected in October 2017.
The next president should be from the Twelve Plus Community, which comprises 47 member countries, according to the Concept of Regional Rotation. The Twelve Plus Party, with an overwhelming majority of 60:10, endorsed the Portuguese candidate and rejected the Pakistani-origin Canadian candidate Ataullahjan.
Defying the commonly observed concept of geographical rotation, Sanjrani, President of the Senate of Pakistan, has also submitted his candidacy. It did not, however, gain approval within the Governing Council.
From the Indian Parliament, the Speakers of Lok Sabha Om Birla and Lok Sabha MP, Poonamben Maadam and Rajya Sabha MP Shri Swapan Dasgupta cast their votes via a safe online voting mechanism.
The 206th session of the IPU Governing Council is currently being held digitally from 1 to 4 November 2020 to elect the President of the IPU and to address and take decisions on urgent issues relating to the operation of the IPU, including the adoption of the budget and budget of the IPU and the work programme for 2021.
The President of the IPU shall be the political head of the organization. The President shall direct the activities of the organization, chair full meetings and serve as representative of the IPU at global events and meetings. The Presidents shall be elected for a term of office of three years only by the Governing Council, which is the administrative and decision-making body.
The Inter-Parliamentary Union (IPU), headquartered in Geneva, is a multinational body of national parliaments. It was established 131 years ago in 1889 as the first multilateral political organization in the world to promote cooperation and dialogue between all nations.
Today the IPU is made up of 179 national Member Parliaments and 13 regional legislative bodies. It encourages democracy and allows parliaments to become bigger, younger, gender-balanced and more diverse.
Twice a year, the IPU brings together more than 1,500 parliamentary members and partners in a general assembly, adding a parliamentary dimension to global governance, including the work of the United Nations and the adoption of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development.