Zardari elected as Pakistan’s President

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Islamabad, Sep 6: Ruling Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) chief Asif Ali Zardari was on Saturday elected as Pakistan’s new President, securing a landslide victory in the elections.

As PPP lawmakers and workers shouted slogans like “Jeay Bhutto” (long-live Bhutto) and “Zinda hai Bibi, zinda hai” (Benazir Bhutto is alive), the chief election commissioner Qazi Muhammad Farooq announced that Zardari had secured 281 of the 436 votes cast by the two houses of Parliament.

According to the unofficial result declared by Farooq, Zardari’s rivals lagged far behind—PML-N candidate Saeed-uz-Zaman Siddique bagged 111 votes while opposition PML-Q leader Mushahid Hussain Sayed secured 34. Ten votes were declared invalid. PTI

The electoral college for the presidential poll comprises the Senate and National Assembly, the two houses of Parliament, and the four provincial assemblies. Zardari also swept polling in the assemblies of North West Frontier Province, Sindh and Balochistan. The 53-year-old widower of slain former premier Benazir Bhutto secured 107 votes in the 124-member NWFP assembly.

Siddiqui bagged 10 votes while Sayed got only three votes.