News
Wednesday, May 14, 2008
Chattha to replace Shujaat as Q head
ISLAMABAD: A decision to change the Pakistan Muslim League-Quaid (PML-Q) leadership has been made to create room for Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) Co-chairman Asif Ali Zardari to accept the PML-Q as a coalition partner in case the PML-Nawaz irrevocably parts ways with the party, sources privy to this development said. It is learnt that President Pervez Musharraf has decided to offer a soft face of the PML-Q to Asif Zardari by replacing Chaudhry Shujaat Hussain with Hamid Nasir Chattha and appointing the former as its chairman on the pattern of the PML-N whose chair is Raja Zafarul Haq. “This will bring the PML-Q closer to the PPP as a replacement of the PML-N, which has pulled out its ministers from the federal cabinet over the issue of the sacked judges’ restoration,” the sources said, adding that Chattha would be acceptable to Zardari because they had worked together in a coalition government led by Benazir Bhutto in the mid 1990s. Serious efforts were underway for quite some time to bring a change in the PML-Q leadership. “The PML-N’s decision to pull out from the cabinet has given an impetus to this move. But the new arrangement is subject to the PML-N’s future role.” To give final shape to this strategy, sources said a meeting would be held in a day or two to endorse this decision of President Musharraf and announce it from the PML-Q platform by adhering to the rules as given in the PML-Q constitution. It is also learnt that the Presidency is readying a list of potential ministers from the PML-Q to fill the vacancies left by the PML-N. staff report
Courtesy Daily Times