PPP's Fahim frontrunner for Pak PM's post

ISLAMABAD: Widely respected PPP leader Makhdoom Amin Fahim is emerging as the frontrunner for the Prime Minister's post in the new coalition government in Pakistan as the two main opposition parties on Friday worked for a power sharing formula. The newly elected Parliamentarians of Pakistan People's Party(PPP) met on Friday for the first time after it became the single largest party in the recent elections and discussed the name of Fahim, the 68-year-old vice-president of Benazir Bhutto's party and a few other probables. No final decision has been taken yet, party sources said, adding that the meeting lasting two hours was convened to discuss Thursday night's decision taken by former rivals PPP Co-Chairman Asif Ali Zardari and PML-N's Nawaz Sharif to form a "National Consensus Government." The names of PPP's Punjab Province President and a formal Federal minister Shah Mehmood Quereshi, senior leader Yousuf Reza Gillani and firebrand lawyer Aitaz Ahsan were also doing the rounds for the top post. The PML-N has already made it clear that the Prime minister will be from the PPP. "We are waiting for them to nominate a suitable member of the National Assembly," PML-N Joint Secretary Siddique-ul-Farooq said. Neither Zardari nor Sharif are immediately not eligible to be premier because they are not MPs. The ruling party--PML(Q)-- which backed President Pervez Musharraf meanwhile said it doubted that the PPP-led new alliance would be stable calling it a "marriage of convenience." As the new coalition partners PPP and PML-N joined hands with a resolve to strengthen Parliament, Musharraf said in a signed article in the "Washington Post" that he would work with the new Parliament.