Pakistani parliament elects prime minister

ISLAMABAD (Reuters) - A loyalist of assassinated Pakistani opposition leader Benazir Bhutto was elected prime minister on Monday and he immediately ordered the release of judges President Pervez Musharraf detained in November.

The National Assembly elected Yousaf Raza Gilani prime minister five weeks after Bhutto’s Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) and its allies dealt the main party that backs Musharraf a stunning election defeat.

In a challenge to the increasingly isolated Musharraf, Gilani ordered the immediate release of judges detained after the president declared emergency rule and he also called for a U.N. investigation into Bhutto’s assassination on December 27.

Gilani won with 264 votes in the 342-seat lower house of parliament. The only other contender, Chaudhry Pervez Elahi of the Pakistan Muslim League that backs Musharraf, got 42 votes.

The announcement of the result triggered cheers and shouts of “long live Bhutto” and “go Musharraf, go” from supporters in the parliament’s visitors’ gallery. Bhutto’s son, Bilawal Bhutto Zardari, was also in the gallery and was seen wiping away a tear.

“It is because of the martyrdom of Benazir Bhutto that democracy is being restored. It is a historic event,” Gilani told the assembly.

Gilani, a vice chairman of Bhutto’s party and a former National Assembly speaker, had been expected to win easily with the backing of his PPP and its coalition partners, including the party of former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif which came second in the February 18 polls.

There had been speculation the PPP would nominate a stop-gap prime minister and Bhutto’s widower, Asif Ali Zardari, who now leads the party, would take over the post after entering parliament via a by-election.

But party officials rejected any suggestion Gilani would be a temporary prime minister.

Musharraf is due to swear in Gilani on Tuesday. He is expected to begin naming ministers to his cabinet this week.

Musharraf has been politically isolated since the defeat of his allies in the election and there is speculation his old foes forming a government will try to force him from power.

JUDGE GREETS SUPPORTERS

Gilani, a soft-spoken but resolute man, was jailed in 2001 by the Musharraf government on charges of making illegal appointments. He said the charges were aimed at pressuring him to abandon Bhutto, which he refused to do. He was freed in 2006.

Gilani opposes the military’s involvement in politics and has called for the repeal of constitutional changes made by Musharraf to bolster his authority, including the power to dismiss a government. He said his government would strengthen parliament and other institutions including the judiciary.

The PPP-led coalition almost has the two-thirds majority in the two-chamber parliament needed to amend the constitution.

He held out an olive branch to the opposition, saying they would be respected, but his order for the release of the judges, though expected, set a tone of confrontation with Musharraf.

Minutes later, authorities removed barricades from outside the house of former Chief Justice Iftikhar Chaudhry and other judges held under house arrest.

Cheering supporters soon thronged the front garden of Chaudhry’s house and he came onto a balcony to greet them.

“I thank all of you and the entire nation on my behalf and on behalf of the judges of the superior judiciary who have been detained illegally and unconstitutionally,” he said.

The incoming coalition partners have pledged to pass a resolution to reinstate the judges Musharraf dismissed out of fear they would rule unconstitutional his own re-election in October by the previous assembly. If reinstated, the judges are expected to take up legal challenges to the president.

The United States and other Western allies fear more instability in their nuclear-armed ally, which is already facing a campaign of attacks by al Qaeda-inspired militants, if there is confrontation between the president and the new government.

Gilani also asked the assembly to pass a resolution condemning the “judicial murder” of Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, Benazir’s father and Pakistan’s first popularly elected prime minister.

Zulfikar Ali Bhutto was toppled by the military in 1977 and hanged two years later after a controversial court ruling in which he was found him guilty of murder.

By Kamran Haider, additional reporting by Zeeshan Haider; Editing by Robert Birsel and Mary Gabriel

Source: Reuters