Despite fears that the Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf (PTI) government was attempting to delay the voting procedure for the no-confidence vote against the Senate Chairman, it has been confirmed that the vote will indeed be taking place on time. Refuting Parliamentary Affairs Minister Azam Swati’s remarks that the voting may be delayed by another week or so, Leader of the House in the Senate Syed Shibli Faraz has confirmed that the voting will be held on August 1st.

Now that it is announced that a no-confidence vote will be held on Thursday, the question arises as to if this vote, which the opposition has fought for, will bring them the victory they so ardently seek. Are these Chairman Sadiq Sajrani’s last few days as the leading presiding officer of the Senate?

At a first glance, de-seating the Chairman appears to be achievable for the opposition. They have the numbers. A no-confidence motion requires 53 votes to be passed; the opposition political parties enjoy a majority in the 104-member Senate with PML-N having 32 senators, PPP, 20, JUI-F, 4, PkMAP, 2, NP, 5, and ANP has one senator, taking the total number of the opposition senators to 64 and making the opposition in a comfortable position to de-seat Sanjrani.

Yet nothing is certain in politics and the opposition should be vigilant that, even with one day left, unexpected obstacles can come in their way of victory. As the opposition has learnt in its past unsuccessful bids for the presidency and other powerful posts, last minute divisions and mutinies have cost them what could have been easy elections. Even now, the whiffs of resentment within the opposition are not hard to spot- most recently, Jamat-i-Islami (JI) senator Sirajul Haq has announced that JI would not be a party to a party to the election of the Senate chairman and would abstain in case of voting. He cited the government and opposition’s focus on political wrangling instead of paying attention to the problems of everyday people as the reason for his party’s abstention from the vote. JI’s non-participation will go in favour of the government.

Even though JI has few votes in the Senate, resentment amongst opposition has a domino effect, and the opposition parties are vulnerable to last-minute switch of loyalties and defections. Despite having a majority, even without JI’s support, the opposition should not take the no-confidence vote as an easy election, and instead give it their best fight.