Pakistani presidential election, 2018

Pakistani presidential election, 2018

4 September 2018
679 votes in the Electoral College[n 1] - Plurality needed to win
Candidate Arif Alvi Fazal-ur-Rehman Aitzaz Ahsan Party PTI MMA PPP Alliance Government Opposition No Alliance Home state Sindh KP Punjab Electoral vote 352 184 124 Percentage 53.33% 27.88% 18.79%
President before election Mamnoon Hussain PML (N) President-elect Arif Alvi PTI

Pakistan
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Presidential elections (Urdu: صدارتی انتخابات‬‎) were held in Pakistan on 4 September 2018.^[2]

Incumbent President Mamnoon Hussain of the Pakistan Muslim League (N) (PML-N) party was eligible for re-election to a second 5-year term, but declined. His current term will end on 9 September 2018. General elections were held in Pakistan on 25 July 2018 to elect members of the National Assembly.^[3][4] The newly elected assemblies elected a new President.

On 4 September 2018, Arif Alvi was elected as 13th President of Pakistan.^[5]

Schedule

The Election Commission of Pakistan announced the initial election schedule on 16 August 2018. Polling was conducted on following five places on 4 September 2018:

• Parliament House at Islamabad
• Punjab Provincial Assembly at Lahore
• Sindh Provincial Assembly at Karachi
• KPK Provincial Assembly at Peshawar
• Baluchistan Provincial Assembly at Quetta

Members of Senate and National Assembly casted their vote at Parliament House whereas members of Provincial Assemblies casted their vote at respective assemblies.

Electoral system

The President of Pakistan is indirectly elected by the Electoral College of Pakistan – a joint sitting of the Senate, National Assembly and Provincial Assemblies.

The votes of the members of the Senate and National Assembly are counted as single votes. Meanwhile, the votes given by the provincial assembly legislators are adjusted so as to give each province an equal share in the election. This is so because, each provincial assembly has a varying number of members, depending upon population size. The largest province by population size, Punjab, has a total of 371 members in its assembly, whereas the smallest province of Balochistan has a mere 65 members in its legislature. Therefore the provincial votes are weighted against the Balochistan assembly in the following manner:^[1]

Regarding timing, the constitution states that election to the office of President must be held no earlier than sixty days and no later than thirty days before the expiration of the term of the incumbent president. If assemblies are not present, the constitution allows the election of president to be delayed thirty days after the general election.^[6]

The electoral process itself is done via a secret ballot due to the post of the president being constitutionally non-partisan. Therefore, unlike during the election of the Prime Minister, cross-party voting is not liable to be considered defection.^[1]

Electoral College

The Electoral College of Pakistan is formed by a joint sitting of the six leading political bodies in Pakistan:

• the Senate of Pakistan,
• the National Assembly of Pakistan,
• the Provincial Assembly of the Punjab,
• the Provincial Assembly of Sindh,
• the Provincial Assembly of Balochistan and
• the Provincial Assembly of Khyber Paktunkhwa

The maximum strength of the electoral college is 706. However, considering the vacant seats, the electoral college for this presidential election stood at 679. A simple majority is required in a two-candidate contest to claim victory. But in a three-candidate race, the victory requirement goes down considerably depending on how the votes are split.^[1]

The weighted votes of each political party in the six bodies constituting the electoral college are as follows:^[1]

Results

Summary of the 4 September 2018 Pakistani presidential election results^[9][10]

Candidates

Notes

References