After departing from the President House, he reached Lahore where he addressed PPP workers at the Bilawal House. It was first address of Asif Ali Zarari after leaving the presidency on completion of his five-year tenure. He was the only President in Pakistan's history to complete full term in office and handed it over to the next incumbent through the ballot box.
His successor is Mamnoon Hussain, a businessman and close ally of Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif whose low-key persona and lack of personal power base puts him in bleak contrast to Zardari.
Six years after his wife, two-time Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto, was murdered, he retires completing full term in office and handed over the office to the next through ballot. Zardari's children Bilawal Bhutto-Zardari, Aseefa Bhutto-Zardari and Bakhtawar Bhutto-Zardari tweeted the way their father left the presidency with dignity.
Pakistan People's Party (PPP) Chairman Bilawal Bhutto Zardari says his father President Asif Ali Zardari sacrificed 11 and half years of his life as a political prisoner and fought for democracy in Pakistan.
In a message on social website on Sunday, the PPP chairman said: "President Asif Ali Zardari lost his wife and I lost my mother in the battle, but we have won the war. Democracy has taken its roots"
The message came hours before the president was going to receive guard of honour on the last day in the presidency after completing his five-year constitutional term.
In 2010, Zardari relinquished much of his power to the Prime Minister, rolling back on decades of meddling by military rulers in an effort to institutionalise parliamentary democracy. Zardari survived all the plots hatched to expel him ahead of his tenure's completion.
Having ambitions to install his as well as slain Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto's son Bilawal in his place in politics, Zardari aims at becoming a kingmaker besides, godfather of the PPP.
That is why, perhaps, he told the media on his second last day in Presidency on Saturday that he was not interested in becoming Prime Minister, even if his party wins next general elections.
"My first priority would be to re-organise my party," he said in an interview with a private TV channel. In my view running the party is more important than becoming prime minister," he said. His spokesperson Farhatullah Babar was quoted in the media as saying that the President would launch new democratic struggle after moving to Lahore from Presidency to reinvigorate the party.