Yousuf Raza Gilani to be Pakistan PM

ISLAMABAD: Slain Pakistani opposition leader Benazir Bhutto's party on Saturday nominated former parliament speaker Yousuf Raza Gilani as its candidate for the Pakistani PM's post.

The new parliament is to meet on Monday to elect the prime minister, who will be sworn in by President Pervez Musharraf on Tuesday.

Earlier, in a dramatic development, Musharraf's political ally Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM) decided to withdraw its candidate as a "gesture of goodwill".

"We have decided to extend unconditional support to the PPP nominee," Farooq Sattar of the Karachi-based MQM, who was nominated last week as the joint candidate of Musharraf's loyalists in the parliament, was quoted as saying.

The decision to withdraw was taken after PPP co-chairman Asif Ali Zardari held talks with MQM leader Altaf Hussain, who lives in exile in London, Sattar said.

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 in December.

Bhutto was the first choice for the party but her assassination in a gun and suicide attack at an election rally on December 27 had left the PPP in limbo.

The other contenders for the post were ex-trade minister Ahmed Mukhtar, party president Makhdoom Amin Fahim and Punjab province party chief Shah Mahmood Qureshi.

Zardari himself was not eligible because he is not an MP.