Pakistan’s parliament was to vote for a new president on Tuesday in an election marred by the main opposition party’s boycott.
More than 1,000 members of the national parliament and four provincial legislative assemblies will cast ballots for the largely ceremonial post of head of state.
Candidates from Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif’s party and from an opposition group led by former cricket star Imran Khan are in the running, Election Commission official Khursheed Khan said.
Mamnoon Hussain, the nominee of Sharif’s Pakistan Muslim League, is expected to win because the party has a comfortable majority in the parliament.
Wajihuddin Ahmed, a former Supreme Court judge, is the candidate from Khan’s Movement for Justice party.
The winner will replace incumbent President Asif Ali Zardari, whose five-year term ends in September.
Zardari’s Pakistan People’s Party withdrew its candidate last week to protest a Supreme Court ruling that advanced the voting day by a week, from an earlier schedule of August 6.