PPP co-chairman Asif Zardari was sworn in as the 14th President of Pakistan on Sunday, officially taking over as the head of the state for a historic second time after winning a one-sided presidential election a day earlier.
Zardari had secured 411 electoral votes on Saturday to defeat his opponent and chief of the Pashtoonkhwa Milli Awami Party (PkMAP), Mehmood Khan Achakzai, who could only bag a total of 181 electoral votes, according to the Election Commission of Pakistan.
Chief Justice of Pakistan Qazi Faez Isa administered the oath to Zardari today at the President’s House in Islamabad. They were flanked by newly elected Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif and outgoing President Dr Arif Alvi.
Chief of Army Staff General Asim Munir and Chairman of Joint Chiefs of Staff Committee General Sahir Shamshad Mirza were also in attendance, while PPP chief Bilawal Bhutto Zardari was seated next to them.
Many other political leaders, including former prime minister Nawaz Sharif, National Assembly Speaker Ayaz Sadiq, former federal ministers Sherry Rehman, Syed Naveed Qamar, Khursheed Ali Shah and Ishaq Dar, Sindh and Balochistan Chief Ministers Syed Murad Ali Shah and Sarfraz Bugti, Sindh and Punjab Governors Kamran Tessori and Baligur Rehman also attended the ceremony.
From Zardari’s family, his daughters Aseefa Bhutto Zardari and Bakhtawar Bhutto Zardari, along with her husband and Zardari’s sister Faryal Talpur were also in attendance.
Zardari is the only individual to have been elected as head of the state for a second time and one of the four democratically elected presidents to have completed their five-year constitutional term.
Nominated as the joint candidate of the PML-N-led coalition government under a quid pro quo deal that saw PML-N president Shehbaz being elected as prime minister, Zardari will replace Dr Arif Alvi, who overstayed for five months in the absence of electoral college required to elect a new president after completing his five-year term in September 2023.
