Bhutto party’s premier choice, at least for now

The party of assassinated former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto picked a respected but lesser-known party leader Saturday as its candidate for prime minister, a move that analysts and some party insiders said could pave the way for Bhutto’s widower to seek the job in a few months.

Yousuf Raza Gillani, a former National Assembly speaker who spent more than four years in jail under President Pervez Musharraf’s rule, eclipsed Bhutto’s deputy, Makhdoom Amin Fahim, who had been seen as the front- runner.

Parliament is to vote on Gillani’s confirmation Monday, with a swearing-in set the following day. The new ruling coalition, led by Bhutto’s Pakistan People’s Party, easily has the votes to push the nomination through.

Analysts said the choice of a lower-key party figure such as Gillani could foreshadow a bid by Bhutto’s husband, Asif Ali Zardari, to become prime minister. To qualify, Zardari would have to first win a by-election for an assembly seat.

Zardari took over as party leader after Bhutto’s December assassination and serves as a sort of regent to their 19-year-old son, Bilawal Bhutto Zardari, who was named co-leader.

Fahim had lost some favor because of a perceived willingness to make some accommodation with Musharraf. Before Bhutto’s death, her party had weighed an alliance with the president, but the ruling coalition wants to drastically curtail his powers.

Musharraf’s popularity has plummeted over the last year, hitting rock bottom when he declared emergency rule, akin to martial law, for six weeks late last year. His party was subsequently trounced in last month’s parliamentary elections.

Gillani’s anti-Musharraf credentials were burnished by his prison stay, during which he refused to make any deal with the Musharraf administration to win his freedom.

Unlike his erstwhile rival Fahim, Gillani is seen as a loyalist who would readily relinquish the prime minister’s job if asked to do so.

“Having Fahim step aside would not have been so simple because of his stature, but with Gillani, such a scenario cannot be ruled out,” political analyst Nasim Zehra said.

Some senior party figures insisted that Gillani was not appointed with merely a stopgap tenure in mind. Husain Haqqani, a Boston University professor who serves as a senior advisor to the party, said he believed that Zardari wanted to keep the party leadership separate from the job of prime minister. But that, he acknowledged, could change in the coming months. “Never say never,” he said.

The drawn-out selection process, and its somewhat muddled outcome, threw an uncomfortable spotlight on internal wrangling in Bhutto’s party, which won the largest share of votes in the Feb. 18 elections. Another opposition party, led by former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, garnered the second-largest share, and the two parties agreed to rule in coalition.

Despite his party’s triumph at the ballot box, Zardari is still seen as a divisive figure. Many Pakistanis distrust him over allegations of corruption during Bhutto’s two terms as prime minister.

In what might have been an effort to deflect awkward questions over Zardari’s longer-term plans, the party carefully stage-managed the announcement Saturday. Gillani did not appear before the cameras, but the party released television footage and photos of him sitting earlier in the day with Zardari and his son.

The party had originally said Bhutto Zardari, a student at Oxford, would deliver the announcement of the party’s candidate for prime minister, but it changed the plan without explanation. Instead, Zardari’s statement was read out late in the evening by a party spokesman, Farhatullah Babar.

As always, Bhutto’s legacy was invoked. The nomination was made “in the name of Shahid Mohtarma Benazir Bhutto,” with an honorific and description as a martyr appended to her name, as is now customary.

In his statement, Zardari praised Gillani, saying that he “is not afraid to lead and knows the way.”

The party managed to avoid any public rupture with Fahim over the nomination. Speaking to reporters after the announcement, he wished Gillani well and said he would not quit the party.

Despite being vastly outnumbered in parliament, Musharraf’s party plans to field a candidate in Monday’s vote. The nominee was to be announced today.

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laura.king@latimes.com