The 14th President of Pakistan will be elected today, Saturday, with former president Asif Ali Zardari and Mahmood Khan Achakzai in the running.
The ruling coalition has calculated that its candidate Asif Ali Zardari would get more than 400 electoral votes.
The ruling alliance has pitched former president and Pakistan People’s Party Parliamentarians chief Zardari against Pakhtoonkhwa Milli Awami Party head Mahmood Khan Achakzai, who is backed by Sunni Ittehad Council, for the president’s slot.
The members of the Senate and National Assembly would exercise their right to vote by secret ballot in the Parliament House while polling for the presidential elections would also be held in the four provincial assemblies.
As many as 325 members of the National Assembly, 91 senators, 354 members of the Punjab Assembly, 157 members of the Sindh Assembly, 117 members of the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Assembly and 65 members of the Balochistan Assembly would cast their vote.
The ruling coalition parties, PPP, PML-N, PML-Q, IPP, NP, BAP and MQM-P have declared their support for Zardari while Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf backed SIC and Majlis Wahdat-e-Muslimeen have assured their support to Achakzai.
Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam-F, Jamaat-e-Islami and Akhtar Mengal of Balochistan National Party have announced they will abstain from voting in the presidential elections.
Zardari is likely to get more or less 202 votes from the National Assembly. Achakzai is expected to get 92 votes from the SIC and independent candidates, and one vote each from the PkMAP and Majlis Wahdat al-Muslimeen, making it 94 votes.
If the political developments so far are taken into consideration, JUI-F’s 11 votes and one vote each of PML-Zia and BNP-M in the National Assembly would not be used in favour of any candidate.
With just a day left for the conduct of the presidential elections, the Pashtunkhwa Milli Awami Party Chairman Mahmood Khan Achakzai, the Sunni Ittehad Council backed presidential candidate, on Friday asked the Election Commission of Pakistan to postpone the polls as the electoral college is “incomplete”.
