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Bhutto's party considers new PM
06/03/2008 15:32 - (SA)
Islamabad - The party of slain opposition leader Benazir Bhutto considered on Thursday whether to nominate one of her most loyal lieutenants as the new prime minister of Pakistan.
Makhdoom Amin Fahim, a long-time Bhutto aide from her home province of Sindh, is widely considered the favourite for the premiership, though several other party heavyweights are in the running.
Bhutto's party finished first in February 18 parliamentary elections, in which opponents of President Pervez Musharraf routed his political allies.
Musharraf, the unpopular US-backed president, is resisting pressure to resign, raising the risk of fresh political turmoil in Pakistan just as it faces surging Islamic militancy and looming economic problems.
Newly elected lawmakers of the Pakistan People's Party met at the residence of Bhutto's widower in the capital, Islamabad, to discuss how to form a new government.
Shah Mahmood Qureshi, one of the contenders for prime minister, said it might take longer to decide the nomination.
Parties live on
"There is no panic, there is no hurry," Qureshi told reporters on his way into the meeting. "The legacy of Mohtarma Benazir Bhutto must be fulfilled, and the party and democracy must be strengthened. Individuals come and go, but parties have to live on."
Musharraf, who retired as army chief in November to become a purely civilian president, is expected to convene parliament later this month and invite the People's Party to form a government.
The party has said it will govern in coalition with supporters of another former premier, Nawaz Sharif, and smaller groups and set about trimming the sweeping powers accumulated by Musharraf in eight years of military rule.
The new government is likely to try to remove the presidential power to fire the prime minister and dissolve the assemblies. It may also abolish the National Security Council, which gave the military a formal say in security policy.
However, Bhutto's party has yet to spell out how it will reverse Musharraf's crackdown on the media and the judiciary last year as he battled to safeguard his own rule.
'This is a democracy'
The most ticklish issue is whether to restore Supreme Court judges purged after Musharraf declared emergency rule in November. The court was about to rule on the legality of his re-election as president the month before.
In an interview with Dawn News television broadcast on Wednesday, Fahim was evasive about what he thought should happen to Musharraf or the judges.
"Let the parliament debate each and every issue and let the majority take a decision. This is democracy," Fahim said.
The United States and other foreign backers hope the new government will prove a stable partner committed to preventing al-Qaeda and the Taliban from mounting attacks in Afghanistan and the West.
- AP
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