Pakistan's former president Asif Ali Zardari won a second term on Saturday, March 9, supported by the ruling coalition in a vote in Parliament and regional assemblies. This is what happens to Arif Alvi, candidate of the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI), Khan's party, who was the winner to hold the head of state in the 2018 elections.
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Asif Ali Zardari, the candidate backed by the ruling party, wins the presidency of Pakistan for the second time after sweeping the votes. The election chairman, Justice Amir Farooq, announced this on television.
Zardari obtained 411 votes, defeating the 181 cast by nationalist leader Mehmood Khan Achakzai, the candidate supported by members of imprisoned Imran Khan's party, the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) reported in a statement.
Achakzai, his opponent, was backed by the Pakistan Muslim League (PML-N) of Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif, and its ally, the Pakistan People's Party (PPP) of Bilawal Zarzadi Bhutto, both second and third forces in the general elections. on February 8th.
After learning the results, Sharif congratulated the new head of state of the Asian country in a letter, an election that symbolizes “the continuity of democratic values.”
The choice and its consequences
The position of president is chosen in Pakistan through a secret ballot of members of the Senate (Upper House), the National Assembly (NA, Parliament) and the four provincial assemblies of Pakistan: Punjab, Sindh, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Balochistan.
To avoid requesting an economic bailout from the IMF, Pakistan could use a conciliatory profile like that of Asif Ali Zardari, 68, who helps the partners of the ruling coalition reach a consensus to put the economy on the path of stabilization. Additionally, he will command the country's armed forces, which play a critical role in forming or dissolving governments.
Zardari gained political clout after assuming control of the PPP party following the murder of his wife, former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto, in a suicide bombing in December 2007, following the wishes expressed in her will.
He was president from 2008 to 2013, during which a US special forces raid inside Pakistan found and killed Osama bin Laden. That was in 2011.
Zardari's greatest achievement during his first term was building a rare political consensus on adopting a new legal and political framework to decentralize power and curb presidential powers exercised by former military leaders.
However, it is also part of his story that in the early 1990s he was called “Mr. Ten Percent” and spent 11 years in prison on corruption charges, which were never proven in any court, and that he and his party called military-backed political victimization, a charge the military denies.
With Efe and Reuters
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