Former Pakistani president Asif Ali Zardari wins another term

ISLAMABAD – Former

Pakistani president Asif Ali Zardari

won a second term on March 9, supported by the ruling coalition in a vote by Parliament and regional assemblies, the election presiding officer said.

The role of president is largely ceremonial in Pakistan, but Mr Zardari is known as a master of reconciliation and could help the governing coalition partners reach a consensus to steer the broken economy on a stabilisation path ahead of seeking a new International Monetary Fund bailout.

As president, Mr Zardari will also be the supreme commander of the country’s armed forces, which play an oversized role in making or breaking governments.

The presiding officer, Justice Amir Farooq, announced the winner in a live TV broadcast.

Mr Zardari got 411 votes, easily defeating the 181 votes cast for nationalist leader Mehmood Khan Achakzai, according to a statement from Parliament.

Mr Achakzai was backed by jailed leader Imran Khan’s party.

The president is elected by votes in the Lower and Upper House of Parliament and four provincial legislative assemblies.

Mr Zardari is the widower of former prime minister Benazir Bhutto.

He gained political stature after his wife’s assassination in a suicide bombing in December 2007, taking control of the PPP Party, in line with wishes expressed in her will.

He became president in 2008 and served until 2013, a period in which United States special forces found and killed Osama bin Laden during a raid in Pakistan in 2011.

What is seen as Mr Zardari’s greatest achievement during his first term was the building of a rare political consensus on adopting a new legal and political framework to decentralise power and curb the presidential powers wielded by former military leaders.

From the early 1990s to 2004, he spent 11 years in jail on graft charges, which were never proven in any court.

He and his party called it military-backed political victimisation, a charge the army denies. REUTERS