Date:23/03/2008 URL: http://www.thehindu.com/2008/03/23/stories/2008032350410100.htm

Front Page

Yousuf Gillani is nominee for Prime Minister

Nirupama Subramanian

He was Speaker during Benazir regime

ISLAMABAD: The Pakistan People’s Party late on Saturday nominated Yousuf Raza Gillani as its candidate for the post of Prime Minister.

Mr. Gillani, a PPP leader from Multan in the Seraiki belt of southern Punjab, also commands a large following in parts of Sindh on account of his family’s custodianship of the shrine of the famous Sufi saint Musapak.

Mr. Gillani was the Speaker of the National Assembly during Benazir Bhutto’s second tenure as Prime Minister between 1993 and 1996.

He spent five years in jail from 2001 after being convicted by a National Accountability court set by the Musharraf regime.

He would be Pakistan’s first Seraiki-speaking Prime Minister, and a source of pride for the Seraiki people, who are fiercely protective of their ethnic identity and have been demanding that they should have a separate province.

The PPP won 23 seats in the region, a traditional stronghold of the party.

Another important leader from the same region, Shah Mahmood Qureishi, was also one of the contenders for the prime ministership along with party vice-chairman Makhdoom Amin Fahim and Chaudhary Ahmed Mukhtar.

According to party insiders, Mr. Fahim told party leader Asif Ali Zardari that if he was not going to be the prime ministerial nominee, the PPP must nominate Mr. Gillani because he was next in the party hierarchy.

Mr. Fahim, who expected to be the automatic choice for the premiership, and whose sidelining has raised the possibility of a split in the party, told Dawn News that “Yousuf Raza Gillani is my friend,” although he remained non-committal about whether he would support him for the prime ministership.

But he said he would be “the last person to break the party,” even though political analysts are not ruling out anything yet.

A significant development was the sudden announcement in the morning by the Karachi-based Muttahida Qaumi Movement, which had earlier joined hands with the Pakistan Muslim League (Q) to form an alliance against the PPP-Pakistan Muslim League (N)- Awami National Party coalition, that it would support the PPP candidate.

It came after Mr. Zardari held a telephonic discussion with London-based MQM leader Altaf Hussain, and it has paved the way for a PPP-MQM coalition in the Sindh province.

MQM deputy convenor Farooq Sattar, who was nominated as the candidate of this opposing alliance, announced his withdrawal from the race in favour of the PPP candidate