September 07, 2008	Sunday	Ramazan 06, 1429

PESHAWAR, Sept 6: Asif Ali Zardari of the Pakistan People’s Party secured 56 of the 65 points allotted to the Frontier assembly for the presidential election on Saturday.

His closest rival Justice

(retd) Saeeduzzaman Siddiqui got five points. Two points were wasted on account of invalid ballots.

Chief Justice of Peshawar High Court, Justice Tariq Pervez, was the presiding officer.

All 124 MPAs exercised their right to vote by 3pm.

The four coalition partners in the province — Awami National Party (48), Pakistan People’s Party (30), Muttahida Majlis-i-Amal (14) and independents (11) — have a combined strength of 103 in the 124-member house. The PPP (Sherpao), which has six MPAs, also voted in favour of Mr Zardari.

The Pakistan Muslim League-N has nine members and the PML-Q has six MPAs in the house.

Mr Zardari polled a total of 109 votes, but two votes were found invalid.

Justice Siddiqui got 11 votes and his one vote was rejected. Mushahid Hussain Sayed polled four votes and his one vote was rejected.