ISLAMABAD, 28 August 2004 — Pakistan’s Parliament elected Shaukat Aziz, former finance minister and close confidant of President Gen. Pervez Musharraf, as prime minister yesterday amid an opposition boycott of the vote.
Aziz received 191 votes in the 342-seat National Assembly.
Opposition contender, Javed Hashmi, who is serving a 23-year jail term for attempting to instigate an army rebellion against Musharraf, failed to win any votes.
Opposition lawmakers abstained from voting after the house speaker rejected a request for him to be temporarily freed to attend the election.
“I declare Mr. Shaukat Aziz as the member who controls the confidence of the majority of the members of the National Assembly,” Chaudhry Amir Hussain, speaker of the National Assembly, told lawmakers.
Aziz, 55, replaces caretaker Prime Minister Chaudhry Shujaat Hussain, who stepped down this week after only two months in office.
The election of Aziz, a former Citibank executive who has led the turnaround of Pakistan’s economy from the verge of bankruptcy over the past five years, was a formality given the pro-military parliamentary majority.
Aziz will be sworn in and is expected to name a new Cabinet today. He is expected to keep the finance portfolio and to retain key ministers, including Foreign Minister Khursheed Mehmood Kasuri, a senior government official said.
Opposition groups have criticized political maneuvering to get Aziz elected as an affront to democracy, and proof that Musharraf — who took power in a coup in 1999 — is still the sole controlling force in politics.
The vote was held up for an hour as opposition members protested a decision to bar their candidate from the session.
They shouted “Shame, Shame”, when the speaker ruled, after hearing arguments from the opposition and ruling lawmakers, that he could not issue an order to produce a convicted person.
Chanting “Restore True Democracy”, members of both Islamist and secular opposition parties trooped out of the hall when he announced the start of voting.
“This is a farce, a complete farce, we don’t call it election,” opposition MP Tehmina Daultana said.
“We are extremely upset at this undemocratic behavior,” she said as opposition MPs gathered in the lobby.
“We have decided to boycott the election process,” said Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan, a lawmaker for Hashmi’s Alliance for Restoration of Democracy, a 15-party opposition coalition. “The decision has been taken to protest the speaker’s decision.”
The opposition claims the conviction in April of Hashmi, one of Musharraf’s staunchest critics, was politically motivated.
Aziz was reconciliatory toward the opposition. “I offer my hand of friendship and cooperation,” he said after winning the vote.
“We will continue to get benefit from his wisdom,” Aziz said of Musharraf. He thanked him for giving him the opportunity to serve Pakistan.
He promised a responsible and competent government. “I don’t have a magic wand or lamp, but we will put our hearts and minds into serving this country. We will take benefits of development to the common man.”
Opposition lawmakers had filed into the house before the vote, chanting: “We reject the rule of oppression! Oh God, give us freedom!”
Some wore black armbands and carried portraits of Hashmi and former Prime Ministers Benazir Bhutto and Nawaz Sharif — leaders of opposition parties currently living in exile.
Aziz — who survived an assassination attempt by suspected militants on the campaign trail — is credited with managing a recovery in Pakistan’s economy as finance minister, after international sanctions were imposed on Islamabad because of its nuclear tests in 1998.
Former Prime Minister Zafarullah Khan Jamali resigned in June after reportedly falling out with Musharraf.
The change in prime ministers is not expected to affect key policies like Pakistan’s support of the US-led war on terrorism and the peace process with rival India, which are firmly in Musharraf’s hands.
“We will take ahead negotiations with India. It is our desire to find a just solution to Kashmir,” Aziz said, referring to the Himalayan territory claimed by both of South Asia’s nuclear-armed neighbors.
However, Aziz added that Pakistan would take “every measure” for the nation’s defense, and would “not only continue but we will try to get further improvement and expertise” for the nuclear program.
In Parliament, Aziz sat next to his predecessors, Hussain and Jamali.
Hussain, leader of the ruling Pakistan Muslim League-Q party, had served for just two months, making him the shortest-serving prime minister in Pakistan’s 57-year history.
He had acted as a stopgap after Jamali stood down, giving Aziz time to win a seat in the National Assembly — a requisite for any prime minister. “I would advise him (Aziz) ... to keep away from hypocrites and sycophants,” Hussain told Parliament.
— With input from agencies
