Bilawal reaches Pakistan to announce PM candidate

March 20th, 2008 Sana · No Comments

* PPP says announcement to be made after reconvening of NA

Staff Report

ISLAMABAD: Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) Chairman Bilawal Bhutto Zardari will announce the party’s premiership candidate at an “appropriate time”, PPP spokesman Farhatullah Babar said on Wednesday.

Bilawal, the 19-year-old son of Benazir Bhutto who is studying at Britain’s prestigious Oxford University, was named Benazir’s heir following her assassination at a political rally on December 27. The untested Bilawal is completing his studies, and his father, Asif Ali Zardari, has taken the reins of the PPP, which won the most seats in last month’s parliamentary elections.

“Bilawal will announce the name of the prime minister. He has come to Pakistan, he is in Karachi,” Babar said. Bilawal would first travel to Benazir’s mausoleum in Sindh before flying to Islamabad, he added.

Announcement: Babar said the PPP would announce its candidate only after the National Assembly was reconvened to elect the head of the next government.

According to AFP, party insiders have said that the current frontrunner for the position is Yousuf Raza Gilani, a long-term PPP loyalist who was parliamentary speaker during Benazir’s government from 1993-1996. They said that the premier named by Bilawal might only hold the post for a few months, until Zardari becomes eligible for the post after contesting by-elections.

Nabeel Gabol, a PPP leader, was quoted by APP as saying that the party had arrived on a decision on the premiership candidate, and would make the announcement after the election of NA speaker and deputy speaker. Daily Aaj Kal (the Urdu newspaper of Daily Times group) first reported the news of Bilawal’s return in its Wednesday edition.