KARACHI, July 29: As the Pakistan Peoples Party has decided to set the precedent of making Sindh the only province where a ruling party is going to boycott its assembly’s proceedings in a presidential election, it will be the minority vote that will come into play and decide the winner of this electoral college.

Few doubt about the success of Mamnoon Hussain, the ruling Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz candidate, set to reside in the Presidency for the next five years or so.

The Sindh Assembly has 168 members. At present there are 162 members, which constitutes 64.8 electoral votes.

With 48 members in the provincial legislature, the Muttahida Qaumi Movement is the largest (72 members) opposition group, which is going to vote for the PML-N candidate.

The other opposition parties include the Pakistan Muslim League-Functional, which has 10 members, the PML-N has six, the Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf has four and the National Peoples Party (now merged with the PML-N) has two votes. One member is independent.

The total strength of the presidential electoral college is 1,170, but the total votes are 702 since each provincial assembly is given equal representation in accordance with a formula given in the constitution.

According to the formula, as the Balochistan Assembly is the smallest house with 65 members. Votes in the three other provincial assemblies are to be divided by 65: so 5.7 MPAs of Punjab, 2.58 of Sindh and 1.9 of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa will be equivalent to one vote.

Thus, the PPP has 35 electoral votes for the presidential election in the Sindh Assembly, the MQM has 18 and the rest of the opposition groups’ lawmakers have 12 electoral votes and the PTI has two votes to support its candidate contesting against Mr Hussain.

So piecing together the announced priorities of all parties, they would give 28 votes to Mr Hussain and two to the PTI’s Wajihuddin Ahmed.

The rest of the opposition has announced support for the PML-N candidate. They include the PML-F of Pir Pagara, which has four votes in the provincial assembly, five in the National Assembly and one in the Senate. The PML-F will support Mr Hussain despite the fact that the Pir is not happy with the PML-N representatives led by Finance Minister Ishaq Dar who visited Sindh last week.

Sources said Pir Pagara had an Iftar-dinner scheduled for the PML-N delegation at his house, which he abruptly cancelled when the PML-N leaders went straight to Governor Dr Ishratul Ibad Khan, who later escorted them to the MQM headquarters, 90 Azizabad, where the MQM announced its ‘unconditional support’ for the PML-N candidate.

“Pir Pagara’s decision to cancel the Iftar-dinner was to convey to the PML-N his resentment over the breach of trust between the two parties. Pir Pagara was not against their meeting the MQM leadership, but what he was expecting from the PML-N leadership was that he should have been consulted formally before Mr Dar and others met Dr Ibad and his party,” said a source privy to the party.

“Yet, maintaining the decision to support the PML-N candidate by Pir Pagara is to show to Nawaz Sharif that the Functional League sticks to its promise despite his party’s wayward attitude.”

The PML-F’s legislators had initially abstained in the 2008 presidential election. Their then leader the late Pir Pagara Mardan Shah had asked them neither to cast their vote in favour of Mr Zardari nor to oppose his candidature. He subsequently changed his mind.

Sources in the PPP said they would remain out of the game altogether as per the party’s decision to boycott the proceedings.

“We are not going to be part of the presidential election as we have already announced about that. Each of our 90 members will happily stay at home,” said a party lawmaker.

While he maintained the party’s policy to keep wooing the MQM to join the provincial government, the PPP legislator said the MQM had a penchant for supporting every winning presidential candidate at least during the past decade.

“They had even nominated Asif Ali Zardari as their presidential candidate in 2008, yet we respect their freedom of political decisions,” he said.

There are PPP lawmakers who are not happy with the party’s decision of boycotting the presidential elections, as they wanted to defeat the PML-N in Sindh as it had beaten Mr Zardari in the 2008 presidential election in Punjab.

“Defeating the PML-N in the Sindh Assembly and the Senate would have been a befitting response, but we could not seize this chance,” he said.

Meanwhile, Sindh High Court Chief Justice Mushir Alam, who will preside over the presidential elections in the provincial assembly, visited the assembly’s meeting hall, which has been declared as the polling station, with senior election commission officials.

Officials said he reviewed the arrangements made for Tuesday’s elections, which included security, polling booths and procedures etc.

Officials said the proceedings would remain the same as in the previous elections. The members will vote with secret ballots at two polling booths from 10am to 3pm. The voters will have to leave their cellphones, cameras etc outside the polling booth.