ISLAMABAD, 30 June 2004 — Chaudhry Shujaat Hussain was elected prime minister of Pakistan by Parliament yesterday, three days after Mir Zafarullah Khan Jamali resigned over differences with President Gen. Pervez Musharraf.
Chaudhry Shujaat got190 votes in the National Assembly. His opponent Makhdoom Amin Fahim got 76. Muttahida Majlis-e-Amal members abstained.
Chaudhry Shujaat is expected to stay in office only for a matter of weeks, until political maneuvering is completed that will allow respected Finance Minister Shaukat Aziz to assume the premiership.
Opposition lawmakers complained that the voting had been manipulated behind the scenes by Musharraf, the nation’s ultimate powerbroker.
They said it underlined the lack of real democracy in this country, five years after the general took power in a coup.
“I will continue the policies of President Musharraf,” Chaudhry Shujaat told the lawmakers after his election. He said his priorities would be to “fight terrorism, improve law and order and eliminate poverty and illiteracy.”
Chaudhry Shujaat won with the support of the ruling Pakistan Muslim League-Q party and other smaller groups. He was expected to be sworn in by Musharraf within the next 24 hours.
Chaudhry Shujaat replaces Jamali, who had served for 19 months but had reportedly fallen out with Musharraf. He tendered his resignation Saturday, without giving a reason.
Aziz, an international banker, is widely believed to be favored by Musharraf. Aziz is credited with salvaging Pakistan’s near-bankrupt economy after international sanctions were imposed in 1998 in reaction to the testing of nuclear bombs.
Standing against Chaudhry Shujaat was Fahim, the choice of former prime minister Benazir Bhutto’s opposition Pakistan People’s Party.
MMA lawmaker and leader of the parliamentary opposition, Fazlur Rahman, denounced the change in the premiership, saying it was unnecessary.
“There was no need to change the prime minister, but he was forced to resign,” Fazlur Rahman told lawmakers. “We are working for the supremacy of Parliament and our journey toward it will continue.”
State-run PTV abruptly halted coverage of Fazlur Rahman’s speech after he made the critical comments.
PML-Q party officials have said Aziz, a member of the upper house, or Senate, will be nominated as premier once he secures a seat in the lower house, a requisite for any candidate as prime minister.
A Musharraf loyalist will have to resign from the lower house, setting up a by-election that Aziz can win, a process derided by opponents as an affront to democracy.
The change in prime ministers was unlikely to dramatically alter Pakistan’s commitment to either the US-led war on terror or fledgling peace talks with nuclear rival India — matters that are firmly in Musharraf’s hands.
Real authority rests with Musharraf, who took power in a bloodless coup in 1999 and has since decreed changes to the constitution that empower him to dismiss the prime minister and Parliament.
Jamali took office in November 2002, a month after Musharraf organized parliamentary elections.
Opposition legislators have proved ineffective since then, spending much of the past year-and-a-half banging on desks and shouting down speakers in the house, frustrated with what they see as Musharraf’s attempts to whitewash what is essentially a military rule.
Chaudhry Shujaat, who turns 59 next month, is no stranger to serving military dictators: he was a minister from 1986 to 1988 during Gen. Ziaul Haq’s regime.
Shujaat also served in the Cabinet of Nawaz Sharif, the prime minister deposed by Gen. Musharraf.
But he was one of the first to turn his back on Sharif after he was exiled in 2000 and join an army-backed breakaway faction of the Pakistan Muslim League.
He went on to lead the new faction, Pakistan Muslim League-Quaid, and became kingmaker after the October 2002 elections.
Shujaat’s family “have always remained with the military and played their game with its support”, vice president of Shujaat’s PML-Q party Kabir Ali Wasti said.
— Additional input from agencies
