Islamabad (Staff Report/Agencies): Dr Arif Alvi of Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) has been elected as the 13th President of Pakistan, according to unofficial results.
Alvi bagged 212 votes while Fazl got 131 votes and Aitzaz got 81 votes in National Assembly and Senate. They received 353, 185 and 124 electoral votes respectively.
He will swon in as new president on September 9 (Sunday).
Dr Alvi faced Maulana Fazl ur Rehman who was the joint candidate of the other opposition parties including Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N), Muttahida Majlis-e-Amal (MMA), Awami National Party (ANP), Pakhtunkhwa Milli Awami Party (PkMAP) and National Party and Aitzaz Ahsan of Pakistan People’s Party (PPP).
Voting for the election of the President of Pakistan held at the Parliament and four Provincial Assemblies.
The polling commenced at 10am and concluded at 4pm.
Chief Election Commissioner (CEC) Sardar Raza was the returning officer for the presidential election, whereas chief justices of respective high courts served as presiding officers during the polls at the National and provincial assemblies.
Five presiding officers appointed by the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) for conducting the presidential election included Islamabad High Court Chief Justice for Senate of Pakistan and National Assembly, Lahore High Court Chief Justice for Provincial Assembly of the Punjab, Sindh High Court Chief Justice for Provincial Assembly of Sindh, Peshawar High Court Chief Justice for Provincial Assembly of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Balochistan High Court Chief Justice for Provincial Assembly of Balochistan.
After the completion of voting, presiding officers will announce details of total votes polled, while a final result of the election will be announced by the returning officer.
The President is elected indirectly through an electoral college, comprising the Senate, National Assembly and the four provincial assemblies – Balochistan, Sindh, Punjab and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. Every member of the National Assembly has one vote while the four provincial assemblies are assigned an equal weight with the smallest, the Balochistan Assembly, serving as the base.
The Balochistan Assembly has 65 members, while the strength of the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Assembly is 124. Thus, the vote of a member of the KP assembly has half the value of the vote of a member of the Balochistan Assembly. In other words, each provincial assembly has a maximum of 65 votes in the college and after adding the National Assembly (342) and Senate (104) members, the total size of the electoral college comes out to 706.
However, 27 seats in all the Houses are vacant and elections on these seats are scheduled after the presidential polls.
Thus, the electoral college for presidential elections currently stood at 679 and a majority in a two-candidate race required 341 votes.
While studying at the De'Montmorency College of Dentistry in Lahore, Alvihe was an active member of student unions protesting against the then-President Gen. Ayub Khan. Later, in 1979, he decided to run for office as a candidate of the Jamaat-e-Islami, for a provincial constituency in Karachi, his hometown.
The dentist tried his luck in the political arena again in 1996. That year, he joined the lesser-known and fledgling political party lead by the cricket star, Imran Khan. Soon after, he was appointed the president of the Sindh chapter of the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaaf (PTI), and then the secretary general as the party’s ranks swelled.
While he contested the general election in 1997 and 2002, he was only successful in 2013, when he picked up NA-250 in Karachi. In the July 25 ballot, he again contested and won the redrawn constituency of NA-247 in Karachi, with over 90,000 votes.