ISLAMABAD/LAHORE, Mar 9:
Asif Ali Zardari was overwhelmingly elected as the 14th President of Pakistan on Saturday, becoming the only civilian President of the coup-prone country for a second time.
Zardari, the co-chairperson of the Pakistan Peoples Party, was the joint candidate of the ruling alliance of the PPP and the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N).
His rival, Mahmood Khan Achakzai, is the head of his Pashtoonkhwa Milli Awami Party (PkMAP). He was fielded by jailed former prime minister Imran Khan’s Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) party and backed by the Sunni Ittehad Council (SIC).
“Asif Ali Zardari is the first civilian president in the history of Pakistan who was elected for a second term,” the PPP posted on X soon after the election results were announced by the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP).
He is expected to be sworn in on Sunday.
Zardari, 68, received 255 votes while his 75-year-old opponent got 119 votes in the National Assembly and the Senate.
The new president was elected by the electoral college of the newly elected members of the National Assembly and the four provincial assemblies, which formed the electoral college.
In the Sindh Assembly, where Zardari’s PPP is at the helm, he bagged 58 votes while he also swept the Balochistan Assembly votes bagging all the 47 votes polled there.
In the Punjab assembly where the PML-N has formed the government, Zardari polled 43 votes while Achakzai got 18 votes.
In the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa assembly, where SIC/PTI has the government, Achakzai got 41 votes while Zardari received just 8.
“The total number of seats in the electoral college was 1,185 out of which 92 were vacant […],” the ECP said. “The remaining 1,093 voters were to exercise their right to vote.”
The election commission highlighted that 1,044 votes were cast of which nine were declared invalid. “Thus, the total number of valid votes cast is 1,035,” it said.
A businessman-turned-politician, Zardari is the husband of slain Pakistan prime minister Benazir Bhutto.
Zardari has been haunted by his shady past due to his alleged involvement in cases of mega corruption during the two terms of his wife as prime minister, when he earned the derogatory nickname of ‘Mr 10 per cent’ for allegedly getting his share of bribes in development projects.
He was implicated in many cases of corruption and spent several years behind bars, even facing custodial violence, but he was neither convicted nor lost his trademark smile, and, ultimately, he was cleared in all cases. (PTI)
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