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- March 8, 2024
- Kainat Shakeel
- 0
ISLAMABAD: The leader of the Pashtoonkhwa Milli Awami Party (PkMAP) and the Sunni Ittehad Council (SIC) presidential candidate, Mahmood Khan Achakzai, has requested that Pakistan’s scheduled Saturday presidential election be postponed. The event occurred one day after the ruling coalition, which consisted of the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz and the Muttahida Qaumi Movement-Pakistan (MQM-P), supported Asif Ali Zardari’s (PPP) presidential candidacy.
PPP Chairman Bilawal Bhutto-Zardari, the joint presidential candidate, Senate President Sadiq Sanjrani, MQM-P’s Khalid Maqbool Siddiqui, PML-N’s Ishaq Dar, Azam Nazeer Tarar, Khawaja Asif, Khawaja Saad Rafique, Yousaf Raza Gilani, Raza Rabbani, Raja Pervez Ashraf, Khurshid Shah, and IPP’s Aleem Khan and Awn Chaudhry, along with many other politicians, were present at the dinner. The economy was one of the many issues that Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif admitted his government was dealing with. The statistics, according to Shehbaz, are concerning. He has been receiving briefings ever since taking the oath.
Achakzai brought up the matter of several open reserve seats in both the national and provincial parliament in a letter sent to the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) on Friday. He claimed it would be illegal and against the Constitution to hold the election without filling these seats. Achakzai firmly declared in his letter to the ECP, “The election should be postponed until the Electoral College is completed.”
Achakzai further disclosed that the SIC has filed a request for reserve seats with the Peshawar High Court. He said he was hoping the court would rule in a way that would be just.
The ECP timetable indicates that Saturday will be the day of voting for the presidential race from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. As of September 9 of last year, the incumbent president, Dr. Arif Alvi, has been in office for an extended period. The president is appointed to the position for five years beginning on the day he takes office and will keep it until a successor is chosen, according to Article 44(1) of the Constitution. Alvi is the nation’s fourth democratically elected president with a five-year tenure under his belt.
Before Dr. Alvi, the three presidents who served out their entire tenure were Chaudhary Fazal Elahi (who served as the fifth president from 1973 to 1978), Mamnoon Hussain (12th, from 2013 to 2018), and Asif Ali Zardari (11th, from 2008 to 2013). Consequently, Dr. Alvi is the first president to serve an extended term as a result of an incomplete electoral college, which consists of the National Assembly, Senate, and the four provincial assemblies. Dr. Alvi is also the third president in a row to have a full term.