ISLAMABAD: SIC-backed Mahmood Khan Achakzai, after losing the presidential election to PPP’s Asif Zardari on Saturday, said that the presidential election was generally fair.
“The most unusual thing about this election was that the first time it has happened votes were neither bought nor sold,” he said while speaking to the media In Islamabad.
“There are some people in Pakistan who think that everything can be bought and sold in Pakistan,” he said, adding that there is a distinction growing between people who could be bought and those can be not.
He also expressed his gratitude to the PTI leadership for their support.
The PkMAP Chairman further said that many lawmakers expressed their willingness to cast vote in his favour. “Even lawmakers, who were not backed by PTI, also voted for me,” he said while expressing gratitude to the PTI leadership for their support.
Achakzai also warned of the ‘charged political environment’ in Punjab and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP). “We have to bear and take care of each other. Why are we taking parliamentary problems being taken to court?” he added.
He noted that it would be better if the charged political environment could be controlled because the country was embroiled in myriad problems.
“We are small, but our problems are big. Our small mistakes will destroy everything, I request for the sake of the country that we have to sit together to resolve it,” he concluded.
It is pertinent to mention here that the coalition government’s candidate Asif Ali Zardari won the election for president with an overwhelming majority on Saturday.
Zardari became the only civilian president to be elected for a historic second time after bagging 411 votes from the electoral college, beating Sunni Ittehad Council (SIC) backed Mahmood Khan Achakzai.
