A Survey of Pakistani Senators: The Interplay of Social Standing and Wealth in Electoral Politics

The Pakistan Senate, the upper house of the Parliament of Pakistan, was created in the 1973 Constitution after the emergence of modern Pakistan. This development followed the separation of Bangladesh two years earlier. The study offers an analysis of primary biographical data of all 599 senators indirectly elected by the provincial and national legislatures (1973 to 2021). The survey exposes biographic features such as family, age, education, training, profession, political affiliations, services, links, and governmental influence. It has been found out how the interplay of hereditary and personal attributes rather than popular will and public representation made the election of these senators possible. Through close technical examination of the biographical history of elected senators it is known that the suitability of the selection of parties’ candidates was determined mostly on the grounds of their hereditary and financial positions with least consideration to their popular or political standings. Though reasonably educated and technically sound people made their way into Senate membership yet their elite background indicated their remoteness from the interests of the majority of Pakistan's inhabitants. The findings lead to the conclusion that parliamentary institution due to its limited popular representativeness became an emblem of status co as well as a device of elite projection and promotion in a state that needed the democratic norms and institutions for its progress.