Pakistan’s Likely PM: Yousaf Raza Gillani
March 22nd, 2008 by SWARAAJ CHAUHAN, International Columnist
Yousaf Raza Gillani, who was Speaker of Parliament in Pakistan in the 1990s under the then Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto, is expected to be sworn into office as prime minister on Tuesday. Gillani has been reportedly handpicked by Asif Ali Zardari, the late Benazir Bhutto’s husband, who appears to have his own ambition to capture that chair as early as possible.
(The Zardari’s PPP party has agreed to form a coalition government with the party of ex-PM Nawaz Sharif, who was ousted by Musharraf in a coup in 1999, and other smaller groups who trounced the US-backed president’s allies in elections.)
Zardari is handicapped at the moment because he (the leader of the main party in the new Pakistan government) did not contest in the recently held Parliamentary elections. So until Zardari gets elected, probably in a few months, he has chosen a low profile politician for the prime ministerial chair and elbowed out the prominent candidates in the race.
According to the NYT: “Mr. Zardari chose Mr. Gillani over Makhdoom Amin Fahim, a much better-known party leader who ran the Pakistani Peoples Party during Ms. Bhutto’s exile abroad. He would probably have been much harder to dislodge as prime minister when Mr. Zardari was ready to take over.
“The selection of Mr. Gillani, 55, was announced after a bruising internal party fight in which Mr. Zardari, Ms. Bhutto’s widower, seemed determined to keep open the option of running for Parliament soon so he could rise to the prime minister post.
“Mr. Gillani, a journalism graduate from Punjab University in Lahore, has spent most of his life in politics, first in the Pakistan Muslim League-N, and then in the more populist Pakistan Peoples Party. He was minister with portfolios including railways, housing and environment.
“He served four and a half years in prison on charges of having put too many people on the payroll when he was Assembly speaker, though he was not convicted, said his brother, Ahmed Mujtaba Gillani. Some of his prison term, which ended in 2005, coincided with Mr. Zardari’s 11 years in prison on corruption charges.
“On Wednesday, the new coalition elected a parliamentary speaker, Fahmida Mirza, by the two-thirds majority needed for an impeachment vote. Ms. Mirza, the wife of Zulfikar Mirza, one of Mr. Zardari’s close confidants, is the first woman to be elected speaker in Pakistan.”
Here’s the BBC profile of Yousaf Raza Gillani…please click here
This entry was posted on Saturday, March 22nd, 2008 at 8:48 pm and is filed under Pakistan, Breaking News. Both comments and pings are currently closed.
