Pakistan Views

Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) was set to meet on Thursday to mull its choice for premier to lead what could be a hostile parliament for President Pervez Musharraf.
PPP vice-president Makhdoom Amin Fahim is the frontrunner for the top spot after the PPP won the most seats in elections last month and formed a coalition with the movement of former premier Nawaz Sharif. PPP co-chairman, Asif Ali Zardari, will “meet for consultation” with the PPP’s newly-elected MPs in Islamabad, party spokesman Farhatullah Babar told AFP. A senior PPP official said the party’s choice of prime minister was the key issue on the agenda, and that there was a “likelihood” the nomination would be announced after Zardari had heard from lawmakers. Zardari has said he is not standing for the position following his wife’s (Benazir Bhuttos’s) martyrdom at a political rally on December 27. He is currently not eligible as he is not an MP, but could in theory stand in a by-election. The experienced Fahim — who like Benazir and Zardari hails from Sindh province — held a 45-minute meeting with Zardari on Wednesday, a close aide to Zardari told AFP, without giving details. Another contender is Ahmed Mukhtar, an industrialist from Punjab province who defeated the chief of the pro-Musharraf party in the elections, party officials said. Also in the running are Yousaf Raza Gilani, who served as parliamentary speaker for a time under Benazir, and Shah Mehmood Qureshi, head of the PPP’s Punjab branch, they said. The coalition needs only to bring on board a few more independent MPs to secure the two-thirds majority with which it could theoretically launch impeachment proceedings against President Musharraf. Sharif, the man ousted by Musharraf nearly nine years ago, and his Pakistan Muslim League-N party have been outspoken in their calls for him to quit. But the PPP’s Fahim told CNN last month that there were no immediate plans for Musharraf’s removal, saying that the new government should “not rock the boat at this time”. Zardari has received several visits from Western ambassadors since the election and has also avoided any outright commitment to removing the President Musharraf.