Pakistan’s new prime minister is Bhutto loyalist

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan – A top loyalist of assassinated opposition leader Benazir Bhutto was elected as Pakistan’s prime minister Monday, and he immediately ordered the release from house arrest of judges detained last year by President Pervez Musharraf.

The action by Yousaf Raza Gillani, a senior official in Bhutto’s Pakistan People’s Party, set up a challenge to Musharraf within hours after the Pakistani National Assembly voted overwhelmingly to make Gillani the nation’s prime minister.

Hundreds of jubilant Pakistanis then converged on the Islamabad home of the detained former chief justice, Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry, as police began removing barricades and barbed wire fences.

The crowd chanted “Long live Benazir Bhutto!” and slogans demanding Musharraf’s departure as hundreds of lawyers clad in the black coats worn in Pakistani courtrooms shouted triumphantly on the front lawn of Chaudhry’s house.

The former chief justice, who was replaced last year when he and other Supreme Court justices refused to accept Musharraf’s suspension of the constitution and declaration of a state of emergency, subsequently appeared on a balcony and greeted the throng.

“I and my colleagues were unconstitutionally confined under house arrest,” Chaudhry told the crowd as he stood on the balcony with the president of the Supreme Court Bar Association, who was released last month. “I am thankful to the whole nation – lawyers, civil society, everyone. Your great struggle for the constitution and the rule of law will continue.”

Chaudhry, his family and five other Supreme Court justices had been under house arrest since November, when Musharraf dismissed about 60 judges to head off potential legal challenges to his rule.

Gillani, whose party swept Pakistan’s Feb. 18 parliamentary elections, received a decisive vote of confidence Monday when the 342-seat National Assembly voted 264 to 42 in favor of naming him prime minister. The only other candidate for the post was Chaudhry Pervez Elahi, whose Pakistan Muslim League supports Musharraf.

In addition to ordering the release of detained judges, Gillani called for a United Nations investigation into the assassination of Bhutto, a former prime minister who was killed Dec. 27 in a gun and bomb attack on her motorcade in Rawalpindi.

Gillani also demanded a parliamentary resolution to apologize for the 1979 hanging of Bhutto’s father, former prime minister Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto.

Musharraf is scheduled to formally swear in Gillani as prime minister today. Gillani, 55, then is expected to start naming Cabinet ministers.

Gillani’s coalition has vowed to pass a resolution to reinstate the judges, an action likely to lead to a confrontation with the president and former army general. Musharraf’s attorney general has said the judges can be reinstated only if constitutional changes introduced by Musharraf last year are repealed.

“This is the beginning of a new era in Pakistan,” said Ali Saijid, 45, a university professor who was among those gathered outside Chaudhry’s house. “We are excited that the judiciary is free and has been released from the clutches of the United States of America. They should allow us to determine our own future.”