Shaukat Aziz Slated to Become Prime Minister of Pakistan

June 26, Islamabad-- Prime Minister Zafarullah Khan Jamali resigned early Saturday after meeting with President Pervez Musharraf.

The Pakistan Muslim League, the leading (though not majority) party in the legislature, announced a new interim prime minister, Chaudhry Shujaat Hussain, hours later. It also announced plans to elect Finance Minister Shaukat Aziz as prime minister in three months.

Aziz was a senior official at CitiBank in the U.S. before he went to Pakistan to become the finance minister three years ago.

He is a personal friend of U.S. Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitiz. Since he headed CitiBank's operations in Saudi Arabia, Aziz also enjoys good relations with the Saudi monarchy.

"We don't expect any major changes in U.S.-Pakistan relations," said a senior U.S. State Department official when asked for comments on the change in Pakistan.

Jamali also announced that he had dissolved the federal cabinet and all members of the cabinet will submit their resignations by Sunday evening, including Aziz, who will have to stand for a seat in the lower house, or National Assembly.

The opposition has condemned the resignation, saying that Musharraf forced Jamali to resign. The country's main opposition group, Pakistan People's Party, said Musharraf removed Jamali in order to replace him with a man of his choice.

A Supreme Court verdict required President Musharraf, who took over in a coup, to hold elections and hand over power to an elected government.

Instead of transferring full power to a civilian system of government, Musharraf forced lawmakers to amend the Pakistani constitution, allowing him to retain most of his powers while transferring some to the new prime minister.