Asif Ali Zardari becomes the President of Pakistan today after winning the presidential election. He secured 479 votes out of 702. His opponents, Retired Chief Justice Saeed-uz-Zaman Siddiqui received 153 elctoral votes and Senator Mushahid Hussein received 43. Asif’s victory in three provinces is overwhelming, especially in Sindh where his opposing candidates couldn’t get a single vote. Only in Punjab Assembly Saeed-uz-Zaman Siddiqi is able to get more votes than Asif.
The vote by the two houses of parliament and four provincial assemblies forms the 1,170-member, but 702-vote, electoral college. According to a Dawn update:
‘Asif Ali Zardari secured 281 votes out of the 426 valid votes polled in the parliament,’ chief election commissioner Qazi Mohammad Farooq said. He has secured 458 out of 702 electoral college votes, according to partial Election Commission results.
Asif Zardari is the 13th President of Pakistan. The ones who have been President before him include: Iskandar Mirza, Ayub Khan, Yahya Khan, Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto, Fazal Ilahi Chaudhry, Zia-ul-Haq, Ghulam Ishaq Khan, Waseem Sajjad, Farooq Laghari, Waseem Sajjad, Rafiq Tarar and Pervaiz Musharraf. Waseem Sajjad has twice been the President of Pakistan.
Excuse me, but Zardari has become President due to the votes of “intelligent” Pakistanis for his party, the PPP in February. It is not because of NRO.
@ meengla,
Just to be fair to Zardari, can you please share with us all his good qualities? You say what I and others share about him as accusations. I would sincerely like to read something good about the man, that now has become the president of Pakistan. Are you up the challenge?
p.s. thank you for your well wishes for my health. I pray that you are well and enjoying this blessed month of Ramadan
I hate Mr. Zardari and his 10 percent deals. However, I am happy he is elected. The people of Pakistan will throw him out if he does not perform. Do not under estimate the intelligence of Pakistanis. The only thing you have to fear is that military dictators do not come back in th name of saving the country. Good leaders are not developed in the vacuum of dictatorship. It is a matter of time good leaders will replace Mr. 10 percent and amir -e- momineen.
I dont know that what wrong we have done for that we the Paksitanis are going to pay this price and after Musharraf now Zardari, indeed very sad. How much people say that he is now a noble person but we know about his past. And we dot want a person like him. Today I am really ashamed of being called as a Pakistani. I m indeed really distressed and dejected. Shame to all who elected this guy to such a highly sophisticated post.
@Salman,
Thank you for adding to the long list of accusations against Zardari. I think the political science etc departments of various universities of Pakistan should start offering doctorate degrees on dissertations based on Zardari’s misdeeds. That should help in producing so many needed PhDs in Pakistan.
I am going to wait and see how Zardari ‘delivers’. I am not going to pay too much attention to the all-of-the-suddent glut of articles about Zardari in WSJ or NYT. I am going to give him and his party a chance especially considering that despite the 11-year lynching campaign involving millions of dollars he has yet to be actually convicted. I am going to take into account the fact that those who have put cases against him have themselves admitted to the ‘political nature’ of those cases. And I am also going to keep reminding myself that Zardari is not the only corrupt one in the Land of the Pure and yet he is singled out to be the most and only corrupt.
Let me see how this govt. functions. I promise I will change my opinion about him if I think that would be right.
PS. Glad you are in good health.
its truly a sad day :(
Mangeela,
Please do not worry about my health or tummy being in knots. I am fine and dandy living here in the West. It is the people of Pakistan that wills suffer.
Let me share with you what the NY Times wrote recently:
“Two recent decisions by Mr. Zardari showed a disregard for Pakistan’s alarming deficits, they (sources) said, speaking anonymously because they did not want to publicly criticize the next president.
In April, Mr. Zardari told Ishaq Dar, the finance minister at the time and a member of Mr. Sharif’s party, which has since broken with Mr. Zardari, that he wanted the price the government paid farmers for wheat to be raised substantially as a way of rewarding an important constituency in Punjab Province, the nation’s most populous, according to two participants in the discussion with Mr. Zardari. The government would then have to heavily subsidize the cost of wheat to the consumer.
When Mr. Dar asked Mr. Zardari how he thought the government would pay for the subsidy, Mr. Zardari replied, “Print the notes,” according to the two participants, a government official and an associate of Mr. Zardari’s. In an effort to solve the impasse over the subsidy, it was suggested that Mr. Zardari form a committee of experts.
“ ‘I am the expert,’ ” Mr. Zardari said, according to his associate.
Farahnaz Ispahani, a spokeswoman for Mr. Zardari’s party, denied the account.
The two officials described another episode in May as the budget was being prepared. Mr. Zardari decided to scrap a proposed capital gains tax after a visit from a group of influential stockbrokers from the Karachi stock exchange, they said. The revenue from the capital gains tax, and from an income tax proposal on the rich, would have paid for an income support program for the poorest Pakistanis, they said. More than half of Pakistanis live on less than $2 a day, according to the World Bank.
In Mr. Zardari’s defense, the finance minister, Naveed Qamar, said that political stability would be restored to Pakistan once Mr. Zardari was president, and that the unsettled economy would benefit from the new political order.
Others were not so sure.
“Zardari will wield unprecedented power for a civilian president,” said Maleeha Lodhi, who was appointed as Pakistan’s ambassador to the United States by Ms. Bhutto and then by Gen. Pervez Musharraf when he was Pakistan’s leader. “But he may lack authority in view of his checkered and controversial past.”
Expect more of this type of drama from your dear Zardari. What Zardari & Co will do is for the interest of the few and not for the common man. So please get your facts straight and stop getting all giddy about your man. He is, and will remain to be a pathological liar.
Nope. Despite some potential ‘horse trading’ by both PMLN and PPP, Zardari was elected by people’s representatives. Learn to live with THAT at least–it may do your health some good not to have your stomach in a knot.
By the way, one of the main reasons Zardari got so many votes was because his being the president would be the best insurance against a premature dissolution of the new parliament. These MNAs, MPAs, and Senators know where to put their money. No blaming them.
Kick him out in 5 years if you hate him so much. But you really cannot take away his legitimacy as the president. And try to understand that without democracy there is no way out for Pakistan and that nation’s leaders mirror its populace.