ISLAMABAD: Pakistan's former president, Mamnoon Hussain, passed away in Karachi on Wednesday, his family confirmed to the local media as condolences poured in from the country's top leaders.

Hussain, a businessman from Karachi and politician of the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) served as Pakistan’s 12th president from 2013 to 2018. He had replaced Asif Ali Zardari and was succeeded by Alvi. He was 80 years old.

Hussain had been undergoing treatment for the past two weeks, his son Arsalan Mamnoon told broadcaster Geo News.

Politicians from both the ruling party and the opposition expressed their condolences.

"President Dr. Arif Alvi expresses grief over the death of former President Mamnoon Hussain," Dr. Alvi's office said.

Shehbaz Sharif, opposition leader and brother of PML-N founder Nawaz Sharif, mourned Hussain as a great public servant and an "epitome of grace, humility and nobility."

"Deeply shocked and grieved to hear that President Mamnoon Hussain has passed away. What an epitome of grace, humility & nobility he was! Pakistan has lost a great public servant and PMLN an elderly statesman. My hearfelt condolences go to his family!" Sharif said in a tweet.

Foreign Minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi expressed his "deepest condolences" on Hussain's passing.

National Assembly speaker Asad Qaiser said the former president's services to the country "will always be remembered."

Hussain was born in 1940 in Agra, India but his family migrated to Pakistan at the time of partition in 1947.

He graduated from the prestigious Institute of Business Administration in Karachi before joining the PML-N in the late 1960s.