PPP yet to finalise PM's name, Fahim frontrunner

Islamabad: The newly-elected Parliamentarians of Pakistan People's Party met on Friday and discussed Thursday night's decision taken by PPP Co-Chairman Asif Ali Zardari and PML-N's Nawaz Sharif to form a 'National Consensus Government', but no name emerged from the meeting for the prime minister's post.

Party sources, however, said the MPs discussed the name of Makhdoom Amin Fahim, the 68-year-old Vice-President of Benazir Bhutto's party, and a few other probables as possible PM candidates.

However, no final decision has been taken yet, party sources said.

The meeting was expected to endorse Zardari as party candidate from Benazir's constituency in Larkana, Sindh. But no formal announcement was made in this regard. A byelection in the constituency is due in the next few days.

The meet lasting two hours was convened to formalise the deal between the PPP and PML-N.

The PML-N has already made it clear that the Prime Minister will be from the PPP. "We are waiting for them to nominate a suitable member of the National Assembly," PTI quoted PML-N Joint Secretary Siddique-ul-Farooq as saying.

Zardari and Sharif are immediately not eligible to be premier because they are not MPs.

Apart from Amin Fahim, the names of PPP's Punjab Province President and former Federal minister Shah Mehmood Quereshi, senior leader Yousuf Reza Gillani and firebrand lawyer Aitaz Ahsan were also doing the rounds for the top post.

Meanwhile, as the two parties prepare to form a new government in Pakistan, there doesn't seem to be much consensus on the issue of impeachment of President Pervez Musharraf.

Nawaz Sharif, a vocal opponent of Musharraf, has been meeting a few European ambassadors in the past few days in an effort to gather support against Musharraf.

The ruling party, PML(Q), which backed President Pervez Musharraf, meanwhile, has described the PPP-PML(N) coalition as a 'marriage of convenience' and said it doubts if the new alliance would be stable.

Pervez Musharraf, on the other hand, said in a signed article in the Washington Post that he would work closely with the new Parliament.

(With PTI inputs)