Eight opposition lawmakers support Zardari

Islamabad: Eight federal lawmakers from the opposition Pakistan Muslim League-Q [PML-Q] yesterday assured their support for presidential candidate Asif Ali Zardari, a statement from the PM House said.

The PML-Q legislators including seven senators and one member of the National Assembly gave their assurance during a meeting with Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani, the statement said.

The lawmakers were Senators Mir Jan Mohammad Jamali, Mir Wali Mohammad Badini, Amjad Abbas, Mohabat Khan, Zafar Iqbal, Kalsoom Perveen, Rehana Yahya and National Assembly member Mir Ahmadan Khan Bugti, according to the statement.

A successor to ousted President Pervez Musharraf is to be elected on September 6 by an electoral college made up of members of the Senate and National Assembly and the assemblies of all four provinces of the country.

PPP co-chairman Asif Ali Zardari faces in the coming triangular contest, former chief justice Saeed-uz-Zaman Seddiqi, nominee of ex-premier Nawaz Sharif's PML-N, and PML-Q candidate Mushahid Hussain Sayed.

Zardari is widely considered front runner in the race for which both PPP and PML-N have been trying to win support of PML-Q. The result of the Punjab assembly vote in the presidential election is likely to determine whether PML-N would be able to sustain its rule in the most populous province.

Political analysts say the PML-N government in Punjab would be in serious trouble if its presidential candidate got less than half of the total votes of the province.

Coalition

Mian Manzoor Wattoo, an adviser to the prime minister, told the media that the Punjab government would collapse in case the PPP pulled out from the provincial coalition.

Following the PML-N exit from the federal PPP-led coalition on the non-reinstatement of the judges deposed by Musharraf last year, the relations between the two major parties have been in the reverse gear after a short-lived honeymoon.

Wattoo said Zardari was likely to get some 450 of the 701 votes of the electoral college.

PML-N information secretary Ahsan Iqbal yesterday warned the party would react strongly if any attempts were to destabilise its government in Punjab.

He hoped that the tendency of people like PPP's Punjab Governor Salman Taseer to whip up political confrontation would be checked.