Fahim frontrunner for Pakistan PM's post

Widely respected Pakistan People's Party leader Makhdoom Amin Fahim is emerging as the frontrunner for the prime minister's post in the new coalition government in Pakistan as the two main opposition parties on Friday moved ahead with a power-sharing formula.

Coverage: Pakistan Votes

Newly-elected parliamentarians of PPP met on Friday for the first time after it emerged as the single-largest party in the recent elections and discussed the name of Fahim, the 68-year-old vice-president of Benazir Bhutto's party, and a few other probables.

No final decision has been taken yet, party sources said, adding that the meeting lasting two hours was convened to discuss Thursday night's decision taken by former rivals PPP co-chairman Asif Ali Zardari and PML-N's Nawaz Sharif to form a 'National Consensus Government.'

The names of PPP's Punjab Province president and formal Federal minister Shah Mehmood Quereshi, senior leader Yousuf Reza Gillani and firebrand lawyer Aitaz Ahsan were also doing the rounds for the top post.

The PML-N has already made it clear that the prime minister will be from the PPP.

"We are waiting for them to nominate a suitable member of the National Assembly," PML-N joint secretary Siddique-ul-Farooq told PTI.

Neither Zardari nor Sharif is immediately eligible to be premier as they are not MPs.

Meanwhile, ruling party PML-Q, which backed President Pervez Musharraf, said it doubted that the PPP-led new alliance will be stable calling it a 'marriage of convenience.'

As the new coalition partners PPP and PML-N joined hands with a resolve to strengthen Parliament, Musharraf said in a signed article in the Washington Post that he would work with the new Parliament.

Reportage: PTI | Photograph: Leon Neal/AFP/Getty Images