ISLAMABAD (AFP) — The party of Pakistan's slain opposition leader Benazir Bhutto will name its candidate for the post of prime minister on Saturday, a spokesman said.
President Pervez Musharraf has summoned the new parliament on Monday to elect a prime minister, which will clear the way for a coalition government hostile to him to start business.
"The process of consultation has been completed and the PPP will announce the name of its candidate tomorrow (Saturday) evening," Bhutto's Pakistan People's Party spokesman Farhatullah Babar told a private television station late Friday.
He did not give details about the final selection.
"You will come to know, and the whole world will know about this in less than 24 hours," Babar said.
Bhutto's teenage son and successor as chairman of the party, Bilawal Bhutto Zardari, returned to Pakistan from London this week to personally announce the candidate.
The PPP emerged as the largest party from general elections on February 18 but has struggled to settle on a candidate amid a power vacuum left by the charismatic Bhutto's assassination.
Western governments are keenly observing the political scene in Pakistan, with a showdown looming between the new parliament and Musharraf, a frontline ally in the US-led "war on terror."
The allies of Musharraf, who seized power in a military coup in 1999, lost heavily in the elections. His power has been further weakened by his resignation as army chief in November last year.
Bhutto's widower and co-chairman of the party, Asif Ali Zardari, has held a series of meetings with legislators and coalition partners on the choice of prime minister but no clear front runner has emerged.
Bhutto was the first choice for the party but her assassination in a gun and suicide attack at an election rally on December 27 left the PPP in limbo.
The main contenders were former parliament speaker Yousuf Raza Gilani, ex-trade minister Ahmed Mukhtar, party president Makhdoom Amin Fahim and Punjab province party chief Shah Mahmood Qureshi.
Zardari himself is ineligible because he is not an MP, but insiders say he may run in a by-election in May to join parliament and possibly seek the premiership himself.
Musharraf's loyalists in the parliament have named Farooq Sattar of the Karachi-based Muttahida Qaumi Movement as their candidate.
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