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| Sunday, 3 November 2002 |
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Pakistan pro-military party names candidate for PM By Nasir Malick ISLAMABAD, Nov 1 (Reuters) - The pro-military party that won most seats in Pakistan's October general election announced its candidate for the prime minister's post on Friday as rival parties haggled over their shares of a possible coalition. The Pakistan Muslim League Quaid-e-Azam (PML-QA) nominated Mir Zafarullah Khan Jamali, 58, a veteran politician from the southwestern province of Baluchistan bordering Afghanistan. The parliamentary leader of PML-QA, Chaudhry Shujaat Hussain, told a news conference that the party had unanimously decided on Jamali. "Jamali will be our candidate for the prime ministership," he said. "This is the first time that a prime minister will be coming from Baluchistan, which had been ignored (politically) in the past," Hussain added, explaining that the party felt it was in a strong position to form a government. Pakistan has seen presidents and prime ministers from the other three provinces since its independence from Britain in 1947. The PML-QA party won the most seats in the election on October 10, but fell far short of the simple majority needed to form a government alone. Since the polls, it and other major political parties have struggled to come close to an agreement on the make-up of a coalition and who should lead it. Both the PML-QA and its main rival, the Pakistan People's Party led by former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto, have been trying to court the Muttahidda Majlis-e-Amal (MMA), an alliance of right-wing religious groups that unexpectedly emerged from the polls as potential coalition maker. The MMA, which rode a wave of anti-Western feeling over the U.S.-led war on terror in Afghanistan and won an unprecedented 45 seats against just two in the previous polls in 1997, insists it should lead any future government. The PML-QA announcement follows the election authorities' announcement of allocations of 70 seats reserved for women and non-Muslim minorities, a key step towards calling the first civilian parliament after three years of military rule. Newspaper reports have quoted officials as saying military ruler General Pervez Musharraf will call a preliminary session of the National Assembly, parliament's lower house, next week. Political sources say any coalition involving both the PML QA and the PPP, which has the second largest number of seats, appears highly unlikely and PPP leaders said on Thursday they were prepared to sit in opposition. Jamali, a moderate Muslim, belongs to a prominent political family associated with Pakistan's founder Muhammad Ali Jinnah. He has served three times as chief minister of Baluchistan province, most recently in 1996. Jamali started his political career as a provincial minister in Baluchistan and served as deputy minister for Local Government and Rural Development in the military government of Ziaul Haq, who died in a plane crash in 1988. Jamali won a national assembly, or lower house seat in 1985 polls and become full minister for Water and Power in the government of former Prime Minister Muhammad Khan Junejo in 1985. Jamali has a masters degree in geography and has served as chief selector of the national hockey team having been an active player while at college. Married, with four sons and a daughter, Jamali speaks English well and is also fluent in the main local languages, including Urdu, Punjabi, Sindhi, Pashtun and Baluchi. "He is a soft-spoken person with an easy-going personality," said the organising secretary of the PML QA, Azeem Chaudhry. "He is a moderate Muslim." |
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