Asif Ali Zardari set to be Pakistan’s President for the second time

Islamabad: Pakistan’s former President Asif Ali Zardari is set to be elected as the 14th President of the country in the election scheduled to be held on Saturday.

The new president would replace the incumbent Dr Arif Alvi, whose five-year term ended last year. However, he has continued since the new electoral college was not yet formed.

Zardari, a businessman-turned-politician is the husband of slain Pakistan prime minister Benazir Bhutto.

The 68-year-old co-chairman of the Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) is supported by the coalition government led by the Pakistan

Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) which has the necessary numbers.

This is part of a quid pro quo deal after the February 8 polls delivered a fractured mandate: PPP supported PML-N’s candidate for prime minister’s post and also got to form the government in the Punjab provincial assembly while Zardari got the support of PML-N and his party got to rule the Sindh province.

Zardari, who served as the president from 2008 to 2013, will also be the first civilian to be elected for the second time as president.

He is challenged by Mahmood Khan Achakzai, who is the head of his Pashtoonkhwa Milli Awami Party (PkMAP) and is contesting from the platform of the Sunni Ittehad Council (SIC), which came to prominence after independent candidates

backed by jailed former prime minister Imran Khan’s Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf

(PTI) joined it.