Date:23/03/2008 URL: http://www.thehindu.com/2008/03/23/stories/2008032360680100.htm

Front Page

Yousuf Gillani is nominee for Prime Minister

Nirupama Subramanian

Consensus choice of PPP, allies

Yousuf Raza Gillani

ISLAMABAD: Ending weeks of suspense, the Pakistan People’s Party named Yousuf Raza Gillani as its nominee for the post of Prime Minister.

A Speaker of the National Assembly during Benazir Bhutto’s second tenure in power from 1993-1996, Mr. Gillani is a PPP leader from Multan in the Seraiki region of southern Punjab.

Mr. Gillani spent five years in jail from 2001 after being controversially convicted by an anti-corruption court set up by the Musharraf regime.

In a statement, party co-chairman Asif Ali Zardari said Mr. Gillani was the consensus candidate of the PPP and its coalition partners to take on the “heavy responsibility [to] lead the coalition government and the nation to greater heights and a glorious future.”

Like Speaker Fahmida Mirza before him, Mr. Gillani is set to win Monday’s prime ministerial election in the National Assembly easily on the strength of the PPP and its allies, the Pakistan Muslim League (N), the Awami National Party and the Jamiat-e-Ulema Islami.

Mr. Gillani has the additional backing of the Karachi-based Muttahida Quami Movement that significantly pulled out of an opposing alliance with the Pakistan Muslim League (Q) and announced this morning that it would back the PPP candidate.

Despite the setback, the PML(Q) said it would not abandon the field to the PPP candidate and announce its own nominee on Sunday.

MQM deputy convenor Farooq Sattar, who was nominated as the prime ministerial candidate of this opposing alliance, announced his withdrawal from the race in favour of the PPP candidate, and said the decision was taken in the “greater national interest”

PPP vice-chairman Makhdoom Amin Fahim, who expected he would be the automatic choice for the post of Prime Minister, congratulated Mr. Gillani and said he wanted a strong and united party.