Pakistan on Tuesday elected businessman Mamnoon Hussain as its 12th president, state TV said, to replace deeply unpopular head of state Asif Ali Zardari, whose five-year term expires in September.<\/p>\n
Lawmakers from both houses of the national parliament and four provincial assemblies voted in the two-man race for the largely ceremonial president of the nuclear-armed state.<\/p>\n
In a sharp reminder of the challenges the country faces, dozens of heavily armed Taliban militants stormed a prison in the northwest overnight, escaping with more than 240 prisoners.<\/p>\n
The economy has stagnated, a debilitating power crisis needs to be solved and US relations remain complicated by American drone attacks targeting Taliban and Al-Qaeda operatives.<\/p>\n
Within minutes of the polls closing at 3pm, state media handed the vote to Hussain, based on unofficial results. The final tally is expected to be announced by the evening.<\/p>\n
Hussain, a 73-year-old businessman and close ally of Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif in Pakistan’s financial capital Karachi had been considered certain to replace Zardari.<\/p>\n
Zardari’s opposition Pakistan People’s Party (PPP), which lost heavily in general elections in May, boycotted Tuesday’s ballot over complaints that the vote was brought forward from August 6.<\/p>\n
The only other candidate is retired Supreme Court judge Wajihuddin Ahmed, nominated by the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf, the third largest party in parliament and led by cricket hero Imran Khan.<\/p>\n
Hussain’s loyalty to Sharif and low profile is expected to bolster the prime minister’s authority and provide a stark contrast to Zardari, considered a sharp political operator behind the scenes.<\/p>\n
A long-serving member of the ruling Pakistan Muslim League-N (PML-N) party, he briefly served as governor of the southern province Sindh under Sharif’s last premiership in 1999.<\/p>\n
On the eve of the election, Hussain told a PML-N meeting in the capital Islamabad that the office was a symbol of the federation of Pakistan and vowed to serve the country and its people.<\/p>\n
Hussain made money in textiles and is a former president of the Karachi Chamber of Commerce and Industry (KCCI).<\/p>\n
“He had no political affiliation until 1999 but his polite discourse and professional ability impressed Nawaz Sharif who made him governor of Sindh,” current KCCI president Azhar Haroon said.<\/p>\n
Supporters say Hussain’s election could be important domestically by giving the south some stake in the federal administration, otherwise dominated by Punjab, Sharif’s power base.<\/p>\n
Constitutional amendments passed by the last PPP government mean that the presidency is again a ceremonial post, a status likely to be cemented by the fact that Hussain has little personal clout.<\/p>\n
Sharif won a commanding general election victory in May, which marked the first time a Pakistani civilian government completed a full term in office and handed over to another at the ballot box.<\/p>\n
Source:Agence France Presse<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Pakistan on Tuesday elected businessman Mamnoon Hussain as its 12th president, state TV said, to replace deeply unpopular head of state Asif Ali Zardari, whose five-year term expires in September.<\/p>\n
Lawmakers from both houses of the national parliament and four provincial assemblies voted in the two-man race for the largely ceremonial president of the nuclear-armed state.<\/p>\n
In a sharp reminder of the challenges the country faces, dozens of heavily armed Taliban militants stormed a prison in the northwest overnight, escaping with more than 240 prisoners.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":9,"featured_media":9808,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-498","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-world_news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/498","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/9"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=498"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/498\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/9808"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=498"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=498"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=498"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}