Sunday (10th March) saw Asif Ali Zardari take office as Pakistan’s 14th president, following a stunning return the day before when he was resoundingly elected to serve as the nation’s sole civilian president for a second time. At a modest but ceremonial ceremony held at Aiwan-e-Sadr, the Presidential Palace, 68-year-old Zardari was administered the oath by Chief Justice of Pakistan Qazi Faez Isa.
Zardari took over for Dr. Arif Alvi, who resigned office in September 2023 after serving a five-year tenure that lasted just five months.
Personals present on the event
Along with other top army and civilian officials and diplomats, Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif, General Asim Munir, Chief of Army Staff, and General Sahir Shamshad Mirza, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Committee, attended the swearing-in event.
Present on the event were former prime minister Nawaz Sharif, Bilawal Bhutto Zardari, his son, Aseefa and Bakhtawar Bhutto Zardari, and other family members.
Zardari- winning a second term as President
Shehbaz Sharif, the prime minister, congratulated Zardari on winning a second term as president. Shehbaz Sharif said in a statement that elected members of all four provincial assemblies, the Senate, and the National Assembly had all shown trust in Zardari. According to him, the Zardari would stand for the federation’s strength.
Zardari holds the record for most presidential victories by a civilian with two. He was the eleventh president of Pakistan from 2008 to 2013, and he is one of the four presidents who were elected democratically and who have fulfilled their five-year constitutional mandate.
Since August 2018, he has served as a member of the Pakistani National Assembly.
Zardari, who is the co-chairman of the Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP), was elected on Saturday as the joint candidate of the ruling alliance. He defeated Mahmood Khan Achakzai, who was supported by the Sunni Ittehad Council (SIC) and Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI), the political parties of imprisoned former prime minister Imran Khan, by a significant margin.
Zardari was raised and schooled in Karachi after being born in 1955. He was wed to Benazir Bhutto, the daughter of Pakistan’s former prime leader Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, who was murdered in December 2007.
Responses on the appointment
“God willing, Asif Ali Zardari will use all of his powers as President of Pakistan for the political, democratic, and constitutional stability of the country and the country will be on the journey of development. Congratulations to all Democrats on his inauguration as the President of the Islamic Republic of Pakistan.” Will move on,” the party wrote on its X social media account.
The prime minister’s advise is followed by the president, who holds a ceremonial position. However, because the PPP is an important ally of the coalition government, Zardari is anticipated to take on a bigger role. The chief ministers of Sindh and Punjab were present at the event, however Ali Amin Gandapur, the chief minister of Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa and a member of the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) party, was not.
Interestingly, about a decade and a half ago, Qazi Faez Isa, the Chief Justice of the Balochistan High Court at the time, led a commission that looked into the “Memogate” affair for more than five months and cleared Zardari of any direct participation in it.
With the support of allied parties, namely the Muttahida Qaumi Movement-Pakistan (MQM-P) and the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N), Zardari defeated Achakzai with 411 electoral votes in Parliament and all four provincial assemblies on Saturday; Achakzai had received 181 electoral votes.
Pakistan’s political history
Iskandar Mirza became Pakistan’s first president following the country’s 1947 partition. He assumed office on March 23, 1956, following the ratification of the country’s first constitution and its conversion to a republic. Prior to that, the governor generals, who administered the nation under the 1935 India Act Amendment, served as its leaders.
A newspaper wrote an editorial pointing out that Zardari was the first civilian president of the nation to serve out his full term and that, with his election, he became the first person from Pakistan to hold the position twice.
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