KARACHI: Pakistan’s stock market opened the day with a fall of almost 1000 points in benchmark KSE-100 Index. This downfall is directly related to the outcome of Senate elections where the opposition alliance won.
KSE-100 index opened the day in negative and fell down to 45,165 points with a loss of 994 points in the first five minutes of the trade. It is not only the result of the Senate election, but the political unrest on the political front is also worrying for business, traders and analysts said.
Prime Minister Imran Khan’s decision to seek vote of confidence from the National Assembly also added to the political uncertanity. The economy is already passing through COVID-19 recession and now it may enter political disturbance phase, they added.
“Political disturbance is one big factor that leads to many factors on economic and business instability,” Mustansir Mustafa, head of research at Taurus Securities said in a phone interview from Karachi.
“It is uncertainty, that haunts investors,” Khurram Schezad, CEO Alpha Beta Core, said.
The ruling party Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf has suffered a major set back in the Senate election as PDM candidate Yousaf Raza Gillani defeated Dr Abdul Hafeez Sheikh for the Islamabad seat.
Former Prime Minister Gilani got 169 votes against 164 votes Hafeez Sheikh, with seven votes rejected. Yousaf Gilani won despite his son’s video in which he is telling lawmakers how to waste their votes.
Interestingly, the same electoral college that rejected Hafeez Sheikh, elected PTI’s Fozia Arshad for reserved women’s seat. Earlier, PPP’s Sherry Rehman and Salim Madviwala won from Sindh.
Prime Minister Imran Khan will seek a vote of confidence from the National Assembly (NA) following the loss of the Islamabad seat for Senate, for which the NA forms the electoral college.
Foreign Minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi announced this while addressing a press conference today. Describing the victory of Syed Yousuf Raza Gilani on a general seat of Senate from the Federal Capital as a “negation of democracy,” Qureshi said that Prime Minister Imran Khan has decided to seek a vote of confidence from the National Assembly, official news agency APP
reported.
