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.
Dear Kamran,
You have traced the political happenings for the coming years in Pakistan. I do agree with this analysis but I will add another possibility as well. For the time being Sharif will be the leader of the opposition party but he may not get a chance to loot.
The other scenario may be the following:
The C.J. Iftikhar Cahudry has not been reinstalled and will not be in any future. The NRO will not be revoked. Mr. Zardari will remain the President of Pakistan for five years. The retired Chief Justice Saeed-uz-Zaman Siddiqui, another obedient judge of Sharif Brothers has lost his chances to the presidency. In this case the PPP government may very easily open the old corruption cases against the two brothers. Both of them will be running to Saudi Arabia or to some other safe heaven to escape a Pakistani Prison.
Meanwhile Zardari will prepare the ground for his kith and kin. He has already started showing his daughters as left and right arms. But he is simply using them as symbols of Bhutto Family (Benazir). His real aim is to install his son (Zardari) on the throne. Mr. Z. A. Butto tried and failed. Now Mr. A. A. Zardari is trying and I think he will he succeed. Long live Pakistan.
AHsn
@Azhar
The problem is that we can’t do a lot. The infrastructure that we have is based on a very corrupt foundation, due to which our thinking has also been corrupted. It may sound very negative, but we actually need a dictator (with a very strong moral/ethic code) to spank us and make us a better human being.
This is what I think about Pakistan. I do not know who uttered this Sheir but it reads as follows:
Har shaakh pay uloo baitha hai
Anjaam e gulistan kia ho ga.
Ahmed Mahmood
what is the professional diaspora going to do? be like naseem ashraf?
don’t you have a role to play?
are we going to leave Pakistan and Pakistanis to their fate ?
I hope we can now stop talking just about this and move on to more important things. With the country facing so many problems lets start solving them please.
any one, please tell what should we do. if we are all sick of this system and want a change will that happen just by writing here. any ideas? can’t we have a professional middle class led political party in Pakistan? which is country based not city based.
Here is my theory of the political landscape at the moment. Zardari and Nawaz Shareef use the independent judiciary movement to throw Musharraf out. Zardari already has plans not to bring it back, because of all his cases. Nawaz Shareef also knows about this that is why he take it as a primary agenda. But wait, this plan is made together between them. They show cooperation between themselves and people of Pakistan elect both of them, so that they can form a collation.
After PPP is elected, they use this agenda to distance themselves. Nawaz now sits in the opposition and waits for his time. Now once people will get tired and frustated with PPP, they will vote for Nawaz, and he will come back. Meanwhile Zardari would have looted the nation for these years, and will hand over the baton to Nawaz, who will continue looting, and this process will go on, until another martial law.
1990s anyone?
Check out the Pakistani political mag NEWSLINE of this month with its article ”ZARDARI IN BLUNDERLAND!”