ISLAMABAD: The time for polling for the presidential election has started, local media reported on Saturday. PPP leader and former president Asif Ali Zardari has reached the Parliament House in Islamabad to cast his vote in the presidential polls. Asif Ali Zardari and Mahmood Khan Achakzai, the leader of the Pashtunkhwa Milli Awami Party (PkMAP), will vie for the office.
Newly sworn-in legislators were set to vote him in under the terms of a coalition agreement brokered after February 8 polls in Pakistan. Under that deal, Asif Ali Zardari’s PPP will take the presidency, while the PML-N has secured the prime minister’s slot for Shehbaz Sharif, who was formally sworn in on Monday. In 2013, Asif Ali Zardari became the first Pakistani president to complete his complete term.
Earlier, Pakistan’s President Dr Arif Alvi on Friday was given a farewell guard of honour by a smartly turned-out contingent of Pakistan Army. The ceremony of guard of honour was held at Aiwan-e-Sadr, Islamabad. Dr Arif Alvi will leave the charge of his office on March 9 following election of a new President of the country. The election of the 14th president of the South Asian nation will be held on Saturday.
Who is Asif Ali Zardari?
Asif Ali Zardari was born in 1955 into a land-owning family from Sindh province of Pakistan. The former President expressed only limited political ambitions as a young man and also losing a 1983 local government election in his area. However, it was his 1987 arranged marriage with former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto that earned him a position in the political limelight.
Bhutto was an Oxford and Harvard graduate driven by the desire to hold protest for the restoration of democracy in the country. Their marriage celebrations were labeled the “people’s wedding” — doubling as a political gathering in the megacity of Karachi, where a crowd of more than 100,000 passionately chanted Pakistan People Parties slogans.
More to be followed…
