Presidential election: polling underway to elect 13th president

ISLAMABAD (92 News) – The polling has been started for the presidential election on Tuesday (today) to choose a new president for next five years. Both houses of the parliament and four provincial assemblies will elect 13th President of Pakistan for next five years. Polling will begin at 10am in the morning and will continue till 4pm in the afternoon. The contesting candidates include Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf's Dr Arif Alvi, Pakistan Muslim League-N and other opposition parties backed Maulana Fazlur Rehman and Barrister Aitzaz Ahsan of Pakistan Peoples' Party. Briefing media men in Islamabad, Additional Director General Election Commission Nadeem Qasim said voting will be held through a secret ballot and Chief Election Commissioner will submit the results to federal government after the election. He said according to the law, the federal government will announce the final results. Qasim Nadeem said only state-run TV will be allowed to record the process and it will share the content with other media channels. The chief election commissioner has asked presiding officers to ensure secrecy of ballot. The preparations of presidential election has been completed. However, The election is set to take place tomorrow, whereas, the opposition is still divided over their candidate. The PTI candidate likely to win with clear majority if the opposition contested with two different candidates. The PPP has fielded Aitzaz Ahsan for the top slot while PPP co-chairman Asif Ali Zardari trying to make the mind of Maulana Fazlur Rehman to withdraw his candidature in favour of Aitzaz. Meanwhile, Fazl also wanted that Aitzaz should withdraw his candidature in favour of him. The high court chief justice in the provincial assemblies and the Islamabad High Court chief justice appointed as the presiding officer in the Parliament House.