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Pakistan

Raja Pervaiz Ashraf elected new PM

Dunya News

National Assembly Friday elected Raja Pervaiz Ashraf as the new prime minister with 211 votes.

After the completion of the voting process the Speaker NA Fehmida Mirza declared Raja Ashraf successful. 211 members of the National Assembly cast their votes in favour of Raja Ashraf and 89 members voted for the PML-N candidate Sardar Mehtab Abassi.The session of National Assembly started with the recitation of the Holy Quran, after which the Speaker Fehmida Mirza opened the session.Moulana Fazlur Rehman requested the Speaker to postpone the election for some time. However, his request was declined by the Speaker, after which Moulana Fazl announced that his party would remain neutral in the election and not vote for any candidate.Later, the Speaker told the members to go the polling booths made for the purpose and the process of voting started.The House was divided in two parts. The voters of Sradar Mehtab were assigned the left side of the lobby while voters of Raja Ashraf were asked to gather on the right side.Raja Ashraf went to the Opposition members and shook hands with them. He also embraced Moulana Fazlur Rehaman.Moulana Faza was looking as composed as ever on the occasion.Faisal Saleh Heyat also voted in favour of Raja Ashraf. Earlier in a statement Faisal had said that he would not vote for Ashraf.It must be recalled that it was Fiasal Saleh who took the rental power corruption case to Supreme Court.The chaos is the culmination of a standoff between the Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) government, dogged by corruption allegations, and the judiciary, accused of working behind the scenes with the military and the political opposition.Ashraf is steeped in controversy. Currently fighting a corruption case from his tenure as water and power minister, he has also been blamed for much of the governments inability to resolve a disastrous energy crisis.The election of any new premier is unlikely to do anything to ease appalling power cuts that enrage millions or end the stalemate in relations with the United States that have led to a seven-month blockade on NATO supplies into Afghanistan.Ashraf will also come under immediate pressure from the Supreme Court to write to Swiss authorities, asking them to reopen corruption investigations into President Asif Ali Zardari -- refusal for which saw Gilani convicted of contempt.Ashraf said his focus was the power crisis, which he promised to resolve despite being widely criticised for incompetency while at the power ministry from March 2008 to February 2011.Our first priority will be to resolve the power crisis, he said.I hope soon we will find a solution, he added.When party official Syed Khurshid Shah confirmed Ashrafs nomination, he conceded that the government was heading towards an election. Its five-year mandate expires in early 2013.If we have committed some mistakes or did not fulfill our manifesto, then the decision should be left to the people of Pakistan, he said.Ashraf, who was appointed information technology minister in April, was originally named as a cover candidate when Zardari picked textiles minister Makhdoom Shahabuddin as his preferred choice.Some analysts had expected the party to favour information minister Qamar Zaman Kaira, who is considered to have more political clout and a clean record.Shahabuddin said the arrest warrant against him was a conspiracy to embarrass Zardari.A court in the northwestern city of Peshawar granted him interim-bail that would protect him from being detained for seven days, his lawyer Shahnawaz Khan told AFP.The arrest warrant was issued on Thursday by an anti-narcotics court over his alleged involvement in the illegal import of a controlled drug in 2010 when he was health minister.Analysts said it signalled that the powerful military, considered the chief arbiter of power in Pakistan, were unprepared to back Shahabuddin.A warrant was also issued for Ali Musa Gilani, son of the outgoing premier.The PPP won elections in 2008 ending nearly a decade of military rule and stands to become the first elected administration in Pakistans history to complete its term in office and hand over to another elected government.Gilanis disqualification was the culmination of a showdown between the judiciary led by a popular chief justice, and a weak, ineffective government that critics say has been politicised at best, or vendetta-driven at worst.The cases against Zardari date to the 1990s, when he and Bhutto are suspected of using Swiss banks to launder $12 million allegedly paid in bribes by companies seeking customs contracts.The Swiss shelved the cases in 2008 when Zardari became president.