Presidential election: Asif Zardari's nomination papers approved

ISLAMABAD: Asif Ali Zardari’s nomination papers were approved as no objection raised over his nomination, his lawyer Farooq Naek has said.

“We have required numbers to win the election, Asif Zardari will be elected the president again,” Naik added.

Earlier, the lawyers of Asif Ali Zardari and Sunni Ittehad Council’s presidential candidate Mehmood Khan Achakzai reached election commission for scrutiny of presidential nomination papers.

People’s Party’s lawyers Farooq Naek and Senator Shahadat Awan reached the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP).

SIC candidate Mehmood Khan Achakzai also reached election commission accompanied by Malik Aamir Doggar and Shaikh Waqas Akram.

The ECP had announced the schedule for the presidential elections on last Friday.

According to the ECP schedule, polling for the presidential election will be held on March 9 from 10 am to 4 pm.

The nomination papers’ scrutiny being held on March 4, whereas the final list of candidates for the presidential elections will be displayed on March 5 at 1:00 pm.

The election of the 14th President of the country will be held on March 09 (Saturday).

The PPP and the PML-N were agreed over the name of Asif Zardari to be elected as head of the state during their power-sharing dialogue.

Electoral College

The electoral college for presidential election comprises of the members of the Senate, National Assembly and four provincial assemblies.

In the election, the Senate and the National Assembly’s members votes are counted as single votes.

The votes cast by the provincial assembly legislators are adjusted so as to give each province an equal representation in the election. Therefore, each provincial assembly has 65 votes equivalent to the strength of Balochistan Assembly, which has minimum number of members.

The weightage of the total members of other provincial legislatures will be decided according to fixed number of 65.