Sharif accepts defeat in Pakistani presidential election

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(Xinhua)
Updated: 2008-09-06 21:29

ISLAMABAD - Former Pakistani Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif on Saturday accepted his party's defeat in the presidential election, but urged the new president to be neutral.

Sharif, also chief of the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N), made the remarks shortly after Pakistan People's Party (PPP) Co- chairman Asif Ali Zardari won the presidential election.

Zardari, widower of slain former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto, secured 479 votes from the total number of 702 votes of the electoral college consisting of two houses of the parliament and four provincial assemblies.

But Sharif has been suspicious of impartiality if Zardari, who also heads the PPP, becomes president of the country.

Sharif appealed Zardari to reinstate all deposed judges including chief justice Iftikhar Mohammad Chaudhry.

The PML-N quit the coalition and sat on opposition bench due to its row with the PPP over the judicial issue.

Former chief justice Saeed-uz-Zaman Siddiqui, who was fielded as the presidential candidate by the PML-N, bagged 153 votes while Senator Mushahid Hussain, a candidate from the Pakistan Muslim League-Quaid (PML-Q), got 43 votes.