Imran Khan's close aide Dr Arif Alvi elected Pakistan's 13th president: Report

ISLAMABAD: Pakistan on Tuesday elected an in depth aide of Prime Minister Imran Khan as its new president, further cementing the ruling party's power after a controversial common election victory.

Former dentist Arif Alvi, one of the founders of Khan's Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) party, will replace Mamnoon Hussain after the vote by means of more than one thousand lawmakers from each properties of parliament and the four provincial assemblies.

Former cricket champion Khan became high minister final month following his party's controversial victory in the mid-July parliamentary elections.

Khan's critics accuse him of having benefited from an underhand intervention by means of the military in his favour, and from fraud on the day of the vote.

State-run Pakistan television announced the unofficial effects simply over an hour after the balloting ended Tuesday, with Alvi claiming victory in televised remarks. The authentic result is anticipated to be announced by means of the election commission on Wednesday.

Alvi told journalists he used to be "thankful to God", and vowed to be a president for all of Pakistan. TV pictures confirmed him shaking arms with parliamentarians after the vote, with many handing him sweets in celebration.

Hussain, an in depth best friend of ousted premier Nawaz Sharif, had stored a low profile all the way through his tenure.

Alvi, a father of 4 and active Twitter user, used to be shot and wounded all the way through a protest in opposition to military dictator Ayub Khan in Lahore in 1969. He nonetheless has a bullet embedded in his right arm.

He studied on the University of Michigan and the University of the Pacific in San Francisco, in addition to in Lahore, earlier than making a career as a dentist and then entering politics.

He served as PTI's secretary common for 8 years from 2006, and used to be elected an MP in the southern megacity of Karachi in 2013, profitable re-election in the July vote.

Pakistani presidents wielded more power till President Asif Ali Zardari, the husband of assassinated premier Benazir Bhutto, took administrative center in 2008 and devolved maximum of his powers to his high minister Yousaf Raza Gilani.

Political analyst Sohail Warraich said the president's function is now to act as a bridge between the federal government and the provinces, adding that Alvi's status as a member of middle-class Pakistan would endear him further to Khan.

"In Pakistan, middle-class presidents don't revolt against prime ministers," he said.

Alvi's opponent Maulana Fazlur Rehman of the Jamiat Ulema-i-Islam, an opposition party backed by means of the ousted Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N), came 2nd in the vote.

Nuclear-armed Pakistan, a Muslim massive of more than 207 million other people, has seen safety fortify dramatically in recent years after a decade-long combat in opposition to Islamist extremism.

But Khan's govt now faces main challenges, with the country teetering on the edge of a balance-of-payments disaster that analysts say may just pressure it to hunt an IMF bailout.

Pakistan may be a few of the international's worst affected international locations by means of international warming, and is facing a shortage of water exacerbated by means of its surging population.