Xi Jinping felicitates Asif Zardari on election as Pakistan's president

BEIJING: Chinese President Xi Jinping has congratulated Asif Ali Zardari on his election as the 14th president of Pakistan.

In his message, Xi Jinping said China and Pakistan are good neighbors, good friends, good partners and good brothers. He said the two countries have achieved fruitful results in the construction of the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor and maintained a high level of development of bilateral relations.

The Chinese President said Beijing is ready to work with President Asif Ali Zardari to carry forward the traditional friendship between the two countries.

On Saturday, Asif Ali Zardari, the joint candidate of PPP and PML-N was elected as 14th president of Pakistan.

Asif Ali Zardari received majority votes of the electoral college, comprising the parliament and provincial assemblies, paving way for him to assume the office of President of Pakistan, for the second time in the country’s parliamentary history.

The PPP co-chairman received 411 votes while the Sunni Ittehad Council (SIC) backed candidate Mehmood Khan Achakzai — the home of PTI independents — only managed to get 181 votes.

In a joint sitting of the National Assembly and Senate, the coalition government’s nominee Asif Ali Zardari received 255 votes while the SIC-backed candidate managed just 119 votes.