JAMALI ELECTED PAKISTAN’S NEW PREMIER

By an IPS Correspondent

ISLAMABAD, 22 Nov. (IPS) Mir Zafarullah Khan Jamali of the Pakistan Muslim League-Q was on Thursday voted as Pakistan’s new Prime Minister and he vowed to seek harmony with his political opponents to run his government.

President Mosharraf immediately congratulated the new Premier and assured that he would be handed over powers of the chief executive.

But the 342-seat Parliament voted Jamali by the barest of majority that will force him to walk on a tight rope in keeping his multi-party coalition together while sharing power with President Parviz Mosharraf.

Jamali, a former chief minister of Baloochistan, got 172 votes out of 329 votes cast, against 86 bagged by Maulana Fazlur Rehman of the Muttahida Majlis-i-Amal (MMA) and 70 by Shah Mahmood Qureshi of the People's Party Parliamentarians (PPP), after ten of its members defected to the PML-Q while the 60-seat MMA was bolstered by support from the 19-seat PML-N and some smaller groups.

"Consultation is necessary in most matters and God-willing I will move ahead by taking various parties, including the PPP and MMA, into confidence", Jamali told the House in a brief post- election speech.

"There will be no fake cases instituted by me against anyone, no dossiers will be opened and nobody will be harassed," he said amid cheers and added: "I hope they will also not harass me".

"We all have to work together", he said, referring to the issue of internal security in Pakistan, a key ally in the US-led war against terrorism and has often seen waves of violence blamed on Islamic militants opposing Islamabad's support to the military campaign in neighbouring Afghanistan, rival religious sects and foreign intelligence agencies. "My request is that we work hand in hand", he added.

Jamali pledged to continue President Mosharraf's both pro-American foreign policy, his economic plans as well as Pakistan’s traditional close relations with friendly countries such as neighbouring Iran and China, calling friendship with Peking "higher than the Himalayas".

"Pakistan had no enmity with any country, bu we will give a reply if anybody cast an evil eye on us", he said in a clear, but veiled reference to India, Pakistan’s main "enemy", with which it fought three deadly wars.

"We are about to be out of the woods", he said of what he called "very good" economic policy that his government would inherit.

The formal induction of the 58-year-old, former hockey player into office, possibly on Saturday, would mean only a partial restoration of civilian rule after more than three years of military rule by General Mosharraf.

Controversial constitutional amendments decreed by the President, but opposed by most political parties, empower the President to sack future prime ministers, dissolve parliament and set up an overseeing military-civilian National Security Council (NSC) that will give the armed forces a permanent role in the country's governance.

President Mosharraf has also assumed the previously prime ministerial powers to appoint the armed forces' chiefs and provincial governors who, in turn, will be empowered to sack provincial chief ministers and dissolve provincial assemblies.

But Jamali advised opposition parties seeking to undo these amendments to be patient and praised the president for what he called a completion of his roadmap to democracy.

Asserting that the transfer of power will be "completed definitely", Jamali urged the members to exercise "a little patience".

"Rome was not built in a day", he said, adding: "My request to friends, members of parliament is that we together run this parliament, for the sake of this country ... Parliament is supreme", he said in an obvious reference to opposition's view that the presidential amendments to the Constitution would rob the country of an agreed principle of parliamentary supremacy and give undue powers to the presidency in a parliamentary system of government.

Jamali said Pakistan’s present situation present "a golden chance" for the restoration of democracy. "Everybody is looking toward us. We have no conflict, we have no difference".

Jamali will become the 13th person to take Pakistan's most coveted but most cursed office.

The first prime minister, Liaquat Ali Khan, was assassinated in October 1951 and all his successors, including the last two who served two short-lived tenures each and are now tasting the bitter bread of banishment - Benazir Bhutto and Nawaz Sharif - were forced out of office either by political intrigues or coups by the military, which has ruled the 55-year-old country for about half of its existence. ENDS PAKISTAN PREMIER 221102

Editor’s note: IPS Correspondent filed this article, based on a report from Raja Asghar of Dawn, one of Pakistan’s leading newspapers.