Ashraf is a stanch PPP loyalist

Islamabad: Raja Parez Asharaf, elected Pakistan’s prime minister on Friday, is considered a stanch loyalist of the Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) enjoying full confidence of President Asif Ali Zardari, who tightly controls the PPP as its co-chiarman.

As minister for water and power from March 2008 to February 2011, Ashraf remained target of criticism and public scorn over a grave energy crisis, which has persisted under him and worsened, badly eroding popularity of PPP, the largest political party.

In March last year, his name figured in a Supreme Court verdict that ordered closer of a string of power projects over corruption and misappropriation of funds in awarding contracts.

The court had ordered that legal action be taken against water and power ministers, including Ashraf, during whose tenures the projects were approved and set up.

Ahead of his election, Ashraf emphatically said while talking to reporters that he and his party stand for institutional harmony and strengthen the democratic system restored in the country in 2008 after nine-year reign of miltiary dictator pervez Musharraf.

It remains to be seen how the issue will be handled during the new prime minister’s short term, due to expire in March 2013 if elections are not called earlier, which to many is a strong possibility as well as the demand of mainstream opposition parties.

Born in December 1950, Raja Parvez Ashraf graduated from the Sind University in 1970.

He has served PPP in senior positions inluding secretary general and was elected to National Assembly, first in 2002 during Musharraf era and then in 2008, from his home town Gujar Khan near here in Rawalpindi district of Punjab province.

He was among those who were close to late former prime minister and PPP chairpreson Benazir Bhutto, assassinated in December 2007 on her return home from self-imposed exile to lead Pakistan’s transition to democracy.

Ashraf is married and has two sons and two daughters.