Polling underway to elect 13th president of Pakistan
Last updated on: 06 September,2018 05:55 pm
The polling is scheduled to continue till 4pm.
ISLAMABAD (Dunya News) - Polling to elect the 13th president of Pakistan for the next five years is underway in the Senate and the newly elected national and provincial assemblies --- together known as the electoral college of Pakistan --- via a secret ballot.
The election is a three-way fight between the ruling Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf’s (PTI) Arif Alvi, Pakistan Peoples Party’s (PPP) Aitzaz Ahsan and joint Opposition candidate Maulana Fazlur Rehman.
The tenure of outgoing President Mamnoon Hussain will end on September 8 and he had declined for a re-election.
Polling stations have been set up in the Parliament House and the four provincial assemblies where the NA, Senate members and MPAs are taking part in the voting process. Chief Election Commissioner Sardar Raza Khan is serving as the Returning Officer.
The ECP has barred the members from carrying mobile phones with them at the time of voting. Moreover, personnel of Rangers and FC have been deployed around the Parliament House and the buildings of the provincial assemblies. The polling begun at 10am and is scheduled to continue till 4pm.
Also Read: Party-Wise Electoral College Of Presidential Elections 2018 - Who Will Be The Winner?
Opposition splits apart
The joint Opposition was to field a single candidate, however, several attempts to achieve the required goal ended in vain.
The PPP last month had nominated Aitzaz Ahsan as a candidate, while other opposition parties including PML-N and MMA opposed the move and as the differences persisted, they nominated Rehman.
Despite several requests, none of them agreed to withdraw their candidate in favour of the other which further widened the cracks in the alliance of opposition parties.
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On the other hand, Minister for Information and Broadcasting Fawad Chaudhry had claimed that PTI would not face any difficulty in getting its candidate, Dr Arif Alvi, elected as Pakistan’s next president as it had garnered the required support.
“The PTI enjoys support of all of its allied parties, including the Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM), the Pakistan Muslim League-Quaid (PML-Q), the Balochistan Awami Party (BAP) and the Grand Democratic Alliance (GDA) besides other smaller allies,” he said. BNP’s Sardar Akhtar Mengal has also ensured that his party will support Arif Alvi in Presidential Election.
How is Pakistan’s President elected
Pakistan’s 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 are scheduled after the presidential polls. Thus, the electoral college for presidential elections currently stands at 679 and a majority in a two-candidate race requires 341 votes.