Pakistan is preparing for a presidential election today (Saturday) following a highly contested and noisy election for the prime minister. This election comes amidst a backdrop of political tension and is viewed as a critical step in the country’s democratic process.

It represents a continuation of democratic processes in Pakistan, with Arif Alvi becoming the fourth consecutive president to have completed his tenure.

Over 1,000 lawmakers from the country’s six legislatures are set to vote to elect a new president, with the ruling coalition’s candidate Asif Ali Zardari having a clear edge over his rival, Mehmood Khan Achakzai, who is backed by the PTI-led opposition alliance.

The presidential election will begin at 10am and end at 4pm.

Having the highest number of votes in the 696-vote electoral college for the presidential election (after the application of a constitutional formula), Zardari is the favourite to clinch the presidency for a second time, after a gap of over 11 years. He previously served as president from 2008 to 2013 after the ouster of Gen Pervez Musharraf.

The newly elected president will take the oath of office tomorrow (Sunday) after the expiry of the extended five-year term of incumbent president Dr Arif Alvi, who was presented with a farewell guard of honour at the Presidency on Friday.

Earlier on Friday, Achakzai provoked the ire of his opponents for writing to the ECP to seek postponement of the presidential election, stating that the electoral college prescribed by the law and Constitution for the election of the president of Pakistan was still incomplete.

JUI-F, JI to abstain; PPP leader can expect to get around 400 votes, Achakzai may not be able to cross 200-mark

Meanwhile, the PPP also wrote to the ECP, terming Achakzai’s demand for postponing the presidential elections as “undemocratic”, alleging that the move was tantamount to an attempt to derail democracy.

Party position in legislatures

Besides his own PPP, Zardari has the backing of nine parties which are the PML-N, Muttahida Qaumi Movement-Pakistan (MQM-P), Balochistan Awami Party (BAP), Istehkam-i-Pakistan Party (IPP), Awami National Party (ANP), the PML-Q, National Party (NP) and the PML-Zia.

Achakzai, who is the president of the Pashtoon­khwa Milli Awami Party (PkMAP), has been nominated by the PTI and also enjoys the support of smaller parties like Majlis Wahdat Muslimeen (MWM) and the Grand Democratic Alliance (GDA).

Jamiat Ulema-i-Islam-Fazl (JUI-F) and Jamaat-i-Islami (JI) have announced that they will abstain from the voting process, whereas some smaller parties have not yet come out with a categorical announcement. A PPP delegation, led by Syed Yousuf Raza Gilani, made a last-ditch effort on Friday to woo JUI-F chief Maulana Fazlur Rehman, but they failed in their latest endeavour.

Given the party position in the parliament as well as in all the four provincial assemblies, Achakzai, however, is expected to easily defeat Zardari only in the 145-member Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Assembly where the PTI members, who have now joined the Sunni Ittehad Council (SIC), have a clear majority even after denial of the reserved seats for women and minorities by the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP).

Importantly, as the election of the president is held through secret ballot and the post is constitutionally non-partisan, cross-party voting does not constitute “defection”.

Formula

According to the formula for the president’s election, given in Second Schedule of the Constitution, the vote of a senator, an MNA and a member of the Balochistan Assembly is counted as one vote, while the votes of MPAs from Sindh, Punjab and KP are “multiplied by the total number of seats in the provincial assembly… having the smallest number of seats and divided by the total number of seats in the provincial assembly in which the votes have been cast.”

Since the Balochistan Assembly has a minimum number of 65 members, therefore, the total votes in all three provincial assemblies will also be considered to be 65 each.

For example, there are 371 members in the Punjab Assembly. If we divide 371 by 65, it comes to around 5.70, which means the votes of six Punjab MPAs will be counted as one vote.

In this manner, the total votes in all the legislatures come to 696. With some seats lying vacant for various reasons and some members having not yet taken oath, it is expected that the total votes polled will be 640 to 650.

Since the party position is still a little murky due to confusion in the number of reserved seats, it is difficult to predict the actual results, but one can safely say that if every member votes strictly in accordance with the party position, Zardari would be able to secure nearly 400 votes whereas Achakzai may not be able to cross the 200 mark.

Who can be the president?

According to the Constitution, the president should fulfil three criteria. The candidate should:

1. Be a Muslim
2. Be no younger than 45 years of age
3. Eligible to be elected as a member of the National Assembly

When president, the incumbent is not allowed to “hold any office of profit” while serving, and if they are a member of the parliament or a provincial assembly, they should vacate their seat on the day they enter the office.

Additionally, a person can only be elected twice for president, unlike the seat of the prime minister.

Submission of election papers

To stand as a candidate for the post, the candidate-to-be must deliver their papers by themselves, their proposer or agent authorised “in this behalf in writing” to the court.

The presiding officer will acknowledge the receipt and submit them for further scrutiny.

If there are two or more candidates, the returning officer informs the speaker of the National Assembly and each provincial assembly of the date and time for the polls.

Electoral process

According to the Presidential Elections Rules 1988, the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) plays the part of overlooking the conduct of the presidential election, with the chief election commissioner (CEC) acting as the returning officer (RO).

Additionally, the Parliament house acts as a polling station for MNAs and the provincial assemblies serve as polling stations for MPAs with the election held simultaneously in all locations.

The ECP is also in charge of appointing the presiding officers (POs) for each location, which are usually chief justices.

Islamabad High Court (IHC) Chief Justice Aamer Farooq will be the presiding officer of the National Assembly, while the chief justices of the high courts in Sindh, Balochistan and KP will be the presiding officers of their respective assemblies. Although this time around, one member of the ECP has been assigned to preside over the Punjab Assembly.

The nominated candidates’ names are then printed on the ballot papers in Urdu in the alphabetical order of the language.

The chief justices — the presiding officers — of each province, along with one ECP member, will be stationed at their respective polling stations between for the polls, along with the candidate’s polling agent.

Similar to general elections, the results will be compiled into Form 5s and, later on, into Form 7s.

To elaborate on the presiding officer’s role, the presiding officer will be in charge of making sure that every voter can mark his ballot paper in secret before it is folded and inserted in the ballot box.

Much like the general elections, the voter needs to carry an identity card and is supposed to put his signature on the counterfoil of the ballot paper.

The presiding officer will also cross-check the voter’s identity and mark against the voter’s name to indicate that they did receive the ballot paper, which is stamped by the official mark by the presiding officer.

Contrary to sessions being held during the elections of prime ministers, there will be no session on the day of the presidential elections.

The assemblies will be used as polling stations with members coming in only to cast their votes. No one will be given the floor to present their arguments and the speaker will not be present as is the case in Parliament.

According to the rules, as soon as the polls commence, the presiding officer will control the “entry of voters in the alphabetical order” as shown in the lists of voters.

After votes have been cast, the presiding officer immediately, in the presence of the contesting candidates or their agents, opens the ballot box and starts their counting, creating Form 5s on the result and forwarding them to the returning officer.

The returning officer, who is the chief election commissioner in this case, will then determine the results by counting the number of votes cast in the Parliament and the provincial assemblies. The ECP collects the results and compiles them, taking on the challenge of announcing them shortly after.

Finally, the chief justice of the Supreme Court will swear in the new president.

How frequent are the elections?

Another major difference between the prime minister and the president is that presidents have usually stayed for their term (or longer if they felt rather despotic).

The elections, according to the constitution, are supposed to be held every five years.

The current president, Arif Alvi, is the 13th president of the country and the 4th democratically elected one to complete his term. His tenure was supposed to end on September 9, 2023, however, due to the ouster of former prime minister Imran Khan, his tenure was extended to last until the next general elections.

Article 41 (4) clarifies that the election of the president should be held “not earlier than sixty days and not later than thirty days before” the term of the current president comes to an end.

Role of the president

The role of the president has been subject to much debate in Pakistan, with its powers changed according to the whims of different political leaders and under different constitutions.

The 1973 constitution, however, greatly reduced the role of the president to a ceremonial one, the status cemented by the 18th amendment in 2010, effectively raising the rank of the prime minister as the chief executive of the country and making the president comparatively weak and dependent on the premier.

The president serves as the head of the state and “represents the unity” for the country’s citizens in theory. In practice, however, the prime minister’s advice is binding on the head of state, which means that the president has to follow through with what the prime minister says.

Additionally, the president has seven days to assent to a bill passed by the parliament, and failure to do so results in the bill becoming law.

Strangely enough in Pakistan, a departure from most other parliamentary systems is that the prime minister appoints ministers rather than the president. A practice usually seen in parliamentary democracies is the president bearing the responsibility of appointing the ministers, albeit still on the recommendation of the prime minister.

According to Hamid Khan in his book Constitutional and Political History of Pakistan, this clause in the 1973 constitution represented the “ambitions and personality of Bhutto” who wanted to “establish the office of a super prime minister”.

Nonetheless, the president’s role is deemed to be important. Articles 40 to 49 of the constitution deal with the role of the president in the federation, which adds that the head is supposed to be “kept informed” by the prime minister on all matters pertaining to the state.

The president, although still on the advice of the prime minister, is in charge of several key appointments such as the chief justices and judges of the Supreme Court and the high courts, the governors of the provinces, the attorney general of Pakistan, the chiefs of staff of the armed forces and the CEC.

The president can also make laws by “ordinances”. The current president has been the the center of controversies, particularly for passing 77 ordinances.

Another controversy the current president faced was dissolving the NA on the advice of the former prime minister.

The head of the state, according to Article 45, has several legislative and judiciary functions. He — on the advice of the premier — can also “grant pardon and reprieve, and to remit, suspend or commute a sentence passed by any court, tribunal, or any other authority”. Additionally, he has the power to issue proclamations of political or financial emergency and suspend provincial governments — on the advice of the prime minister.

Nadir Guramani also contributed to this article.