Islamabad: Pakistan has elected India-born Mamnoon Hussain, backed by the ruling Pakistan Muslim League-N party (PML-N), as its 12th president on Tuesday.
Hussain, a close aide of Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, will replace incumbent Asif Ali Zardari in September. Legislators from both houses of the national parliament and four provincial assemblies voted on Tuesday in the two-man race for the largely ceremonial post as president. Pakistan People's Party withdrew its candidate Raza Rabbani and boycotted the election in protest to the date of polls being changed. The only other candidate was retired Supreme Court judge Wajihuddin Ahmed, nominated by the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf, the third largest party in parliament and led by cricket-turned politician Imran Khan.
Born in the historic city of Agra in India, Hussain, who belongs to an Urdu-speaking ethnic group that migrated from India during partition in 1947, was the candidate of ruling PML-N government.
A long-serving member of the ruling PML-N party, he briefly served as governor of the southern province Sindh under Sharif's last stint as prime minister in 1999. Hussain is a former president of the Karachi Chamber of Commerce and Industry (KCCI).
Pakistan so far had 11 presidents, out of which five were military generals. Four of them seized powers through coups, whereas first president Major Sikandar Mirza was elected in 1956 after the first constitution was adopted.
