New Delhi: In what can be called a landslide victory, Pakistan ruling party, PPP's co-chairman, Asif Ali Zardari has won the Presidential elections by a huge margin.
The National Assembly voted in Zardari by a winning margin of 281 out of 426 votes. There are a total of 436 members in the National Assembly, all of whom voted on Saturday. Ten votes were declared invalid.
Zardari needed 381 votes to win but won by an overwhelming majority of 460 votes - excluding the Punjab Assembly results.
He got the bulk of votes in the Balochistan and Sindh Assemblies.Dawn News reports that Zardari was voted in by 59 votes in the 65-member in the Balochistan Assembly.
In the Sindh Assembly too, Zardari got 162 votes from the 163 members.
In Pakistan, President holds vast powers including the power to dissolve Parliament, to sack the Prime Minister and to appoint the Chiefs of the Army, Navy and Air Force.
According to Kamran Yousaf of Dawn News PPP co-chairman, Asif Ali Zardari - who was the PPP's candidate - had earlier said that he was committed to making the president ceremonial, but refused to go along with Nawaz Sharif in diluting those powers.
Zardari has had a legacy of broken promises and the 53-year-old has also spent 11 years in jail on corruption and other charges.
Asif Ali Zardari has become the first head of any political party to occupy the presidency after Zulfikar Ali Bhutto. POLLING PROCESS
Here's how the President of Pakistan is elected:
Zardari's position was unbeatable according to analysts as his party had 124 seats in the National Assembly and also a majority in the Sindh Assembly.
PPP is also the second largest party in the Provincial Assemblies of Punjab, Balochistan and North West Frontier.
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