Pakistan: Asif Ali Zardari to be next President after PML-N, PPP agree to join hands
The Election Commission of Pakistan has announced that independent candidates, a majority of them supported by Imran Khan’s PTI secured 101 seats, followed by Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) with 75 seats, Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) getting 54 seats.
Former Pakistan President Asif Ali Zardari may be chosen as Pakistan’s next president two days after Pakistan’s leading parties, such as the Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) and Nawaz Sharif’s Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N), agreed to form a government at the Centre. It was earlier reported that Shehbaz Sharif, the younger brother of former premier Nawaz Sharif, is expected to become Pakistan’s next PM.
To form a government, a party must win 133 seats out of 265 contested seats in the 266-member National Assembly.
The Election Commission of Pakistan has announced that independent candidates, a majority of them supported by the PTI secured 101 seats, followed by Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) with 75 seats, Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) getting 54 seats, and Muttahida Qaumi Movement-Pakistan (MQM-P) bagging 17 seats.
Besides PPP and PML-N, the new coalition is being joined by the MQM-P, PML-Q, IPP, and BAP. The pattern of the last government will be similar to the Pakistan Democratic Movement (PDM), local media reported.
On Wednesday, Shehbaz along with Asif Ali Zardari of PPP, Khalid Maqbool Siddiqui of Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM) met at the residence of Shujaat Hussain of Pakistan Muslim League-Quaid (PML-Q) after a consultative meeting.
“Today we have united to tell the nation that we all accept the split mandate. I am thankful to Zardari and Bilawal that they decided for their party to vote for the PML-N,” he said and thanked the other gathered leaders as well.
Asif Ali Zardari, husband of former PM Benazir Bhutto, had previously accused now-allies Nawaz Sharif and Shehbaz Sharif of killing him. In 2017, Zardari said that the Sharif brothers tried to assassinate him twice. “The Sharif brothers – former prime minister Nawaz Sharif and his younger brother Punjab Chief Minister Shahbaz Sharif -twice planned my murder in captivity in the 1990s,” Zardari said while speaking to party workers at Bilawal House Lahore in October 2017.
He said that he had refused Nawaz’s attempts to contact him, adding, “I have not yet forgotten what they (Sharifs) have done to Benazir Bhutto (his wife) and me. We forgave them and signed the Charter of Democracy, but still Mian sahib (Nawaz) betrayed me and went to court in memogate to label me a traitor.”