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Early March date for choosing Pakistani Prime Minister

Pakistan's new government will likely name its choice for prime minister in early March, party officials said on Saturday, as uncertainty surrounded the future of key US ally President Pervez Musharraf.

  • Agencies
  • Published: 01:13 February 24, 2008
  • Gulf News

Islamabad: Pakistan's new government will likely name its choice for prime minister in early March, party officials said on Saturday, as uncertainty surrounded the future of key US ally President Pervez Musharraf.

The two biggest parties to emerge after Monday's parliamentary election have been weighing their choice for premier after agreeing to form a coalition.

Officials from both parties said the frontrunner to be prime minister was Makhdoom Ameen Fahim, the widely respected vice president of slain former premier Benazir Bhutto's Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP).

"There is an agreement that Fahim should be the parliamentary leader and candidate for PM but the announcement is unlikely to be made public before the parliament is convened into session, most probably in the first week of March," said a senior PPP official, who did not want to be named.

Other possible nominees include Shah Mehmoud Qureshi, a top Peoples Party figure from Punjab province, and former National Assembly speaker Yousuf Raza Gilani, party officials and analysts said.

Consensus builder

Shafqat Mahmoud, a prominent political commentator and former Peoples Party spokesman, said Fahim was the favourite in part because the party wanted a prime minister from Sindh province, the Bhutto family stronghold. Both Qureshi and Gilani are from Punjab, the biggest and richest of Pakistan's four provinces.

Fahim "is a consensus builder", Mahmoud said. "He would be good in a coalition and in papering over differences."

Fahim, a mild-mannered figure short on charisma, served as the go-between for Musharraf and Bhutto during her eight years in exile. Fahim turned down the prime minister's post five years ago because Musharraf wanted him to cut his ties to the Bhutto family.

Bhutto's party won the right to pick the new prime minister by finishing first in balloting, claiming at least 87 of the 268 contested seats.

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