Editing Muhammad Rafiq Tarar (section)

===Initial days===
After [[Farooq Leghari]]'s resignation in 1997, he was nominated as a candidate for the [[president of Pakistan]].<ref name="BBC Pakistan Bureau"/> On 31 December 1997, in an [[1997 Pakistani presidential election|indirect election]], Tarar was elected by a huge margin,<ref name="President Muhammad Rafiq Tarar"/> getting 374 of 457 votes of the [[Electoral College (Pakistan)|Electoral College]] against [[Aftab Shahban Mirani|Aftab Mirani]] of [[Pakistan Peoples Party|PPP]] (a [[Pakistan Muslim League (N)|PML(N)]]'s rival) who got 31 votes, and Muhammad Khan Shirani of [[JUI(S)]] who got 22 votes. This was the largest margin in such elections. Upon his election, former Prime Minister [[Benazir Bhutto]] delivered a speech in London to the Commonwealth Ethnic Bar Association and criticized his election. She accused him of being dishonest by saying "A former judge [Tarar] who dishonestly legitimized the overthrow of my first government was elected president of Pakistan. This same man stands accused by a former President [[Farooq Leghari]] of taking briefcases of money to bribe other judges in the famous 1997 case. The Election Commission rejected Justice Tarar's nomination for the presidency. Justice Qayyum, on leave for his mother's funeral, rushed back to grant a stay, and Tarar was elected. As for the bribery charges, Tarar, as a former judge, like former generals, is immune to prosecution in real terms."<ref name="Daily DAWN story">{{cite news|last1=Ardeshir Cowasjee|title=Benazir Bhutto criticized Tarar's appointment as a President|url=https://www.dawn.com/news/1072352|access-date=22 October 2019|agency=Daily Dawn|newspaper=[[Dawn (newspaper)|Dawn]]|date=5 November 2000|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20191021202357/https://www.dawn.com/news/1072352|archive-date=21 October 2019|url-status=live|author1-link=Ardeshir Cowasjee}}</ref>