ISLAMABAD: In what turned out to be a lopsided contest in the end, the Pakistan Peoples Party co-chairman Asif Ali Zardari has secured 255 votes in the National Assembly and Senate and is now set to become the president of the country for the second time.
He was contesting against the PkMAP chief Mahmood Khan Achakzai who could only manage 119 votes. Zardari’s election to the presidentship will mark the second time when he has been appointed as the country head. He has previously served as Pakistan’s president from 2008 till 2013.
Even before the results were officially announced, the foreign minister Bilawal Bhutto Zardari took to X to share the total number of votes cast in favour of his father. Bilawal wrote on X that his father had secured 411 votes against Achakzai’s 181.
The SIC backed Achakzai has accepted the results, declaring the election to “generally fair”. He said that the election marked the first time that the votes were neither bought nor sold. He thanked the PTI for extending its support to him at the presidential elections.