The writer is an author, and a former senator and federal minister.
THE 2021 buzz about the Senate evokes recall about the 1985 Senate with particular reference to alleged or actual costs for election.
Around mid-February 1985, my far better half Shabnam persuaded me to believe that one was eligible for election to the Senate as a technocrat on a reserved seat. Like elections for the new National Assembly and provincial assemblies held earlier the same month, Senate polls would also be on a non-party basis. But at least three parties unofficially participated — JI, JUI and the Pagara Muslim League. All other major parties boycotted the polls held under martial law and the continued rule of Gen Ziaul Haq (later, even senior PPP leaders regretted the boycott). Within three years, non-party-based legislatures unsettled the military ruler to the extent he was panicked into dissolving them in May 1988.