Pakistan election 2008 was held in February and till then even the position of the parties is quite clear but the prime minister is still care taker. The position is going to be clear now. Yousaf Raza Gillani will be the candidate of coalition parties which have a mandate in the parliament.

On Saturday, March 22, 2008 The News reported that: [Pakistan Peoples Party would likely to nominate Yousuf Raza Gillani as the new prime minister of the country.According to Geo News, PPP has completed consultations with coalition partners about the prime minister and the allies have endorsed the nomination.The formal announcement of the name of prime minister is expected tonight. Chairman PPP Bilawal Bhutto Zardari would announce the name.

This Yousaf Raza Gillani, who is he? The PPP has not been really more than a political vehicle for the Bhuttos, so it is not used to building up figures other than them to be prime minister, but when a coalition is formed, when a coalition government is to be headed up for some time until Asif can be found a seat in the National Assembly, a non-Bhutto must be found, but is bound to be something of a mystery.
But Yousaf Raza is not much of a mystery. He is from Multan, and from the Gillani family, which is descended from Syed Abdul Qadir, who was both a Hassani and Hussaini Syed (from his mother), of Gilan. This family is the caretaker of the shrine of Hazrat Musa Pak, who is their ancestor. It is not as prominent as the Qureshis, who are the representatives of such famous Pirs of Multan as Shah Shams Tabrez and Shah Ruknuddin Alam, but still the Gillanis of Multan have been prominent enough for them to have been governors of the old Multan subah under the Mughals, and for the head of the family to have been a provincial darbari under the British Raj. One of them, Syed Alamdar Hussain Gillani, was a member of the initial federal cabinets of Pakistan.
His son, Yousaf Raza, managed to defeat Nawaz Sharif in 1988, when he contested four national and four provincial seats throughout the province, his first test of acceptability among the voters of his home province. Yousaf was then on a PPP ticket, but that was by no means his first election. 
He had already contested in 1985 for the National Assembly and had won in a partyless election. He served Junejo as a minister, and thus was one of the few experienced people elected on a PPP ticket in 1988. Accordingly, he served in the Benazir cabinet as Housing and Works minister. Since the minister was the one responsible for allotting all official accommodation apart from that already dedicated to various ministries, he was obliged to engage in a lot of public dealing, which he did not really enjoy, but which he engaged in with a modicum of enthusiasm.
During the opposition years, he spent some time behind bars over the Long March, though elected to the National Assembly again. In the next Assembly, to which he was elected handily, he was made speaker, which then was probably the highest honour the PPP then had. 
He thus has followed Manzoor Wattoo, Ch Pervaiz Ilahi and Malik Meraj Khalid in first becoming speaker of his House (the Punjab Assembly in the case of the former two, the National Assembly in the case of the last) and then becoming the Leader of the House (but Malik Meraj never met the National Assembly as its Leader). Those who have acted in reverse (been CM first, then speaker) have been Syed Muzaffar Hussain Shah (Sindh) and the late Hanif Ramay (Punjab).
Clearly, being a speaker is a cut above being a minister, but being the PM or CM beats being the speaker. The problem with ministries is that there is no real estimate of how many ministers there will be. At present there is talk of 18 (the PML-N and the PPP are taking an equal number of ministries, while the JUI-F and ANP are limited to one apiece), which means that every expansion will be a multiple of 18, upto three. 
Also, with a coalition situation, a lot of MNAs who normally do not recover from the shock of being elected, are candidates for a ministry, or any part that can be spared after the inevitable split-up, which will probably be carried out by the party leader on bureaucratic advice. At present, the MNAs are most probably seeking portfolios which carry the greatest chance of public dealing. It will be the task, perhaps self-appointed, to oil matters by keeping the ministers satisfied, and less likely to complain to their respective party leaders, none of whom is presently in cabinet. Apart from avoiding charges of favouritism, the new PM will also have to establish a relationship with the president.
Preferably, it should be a good working relationship, but while the PPP chief is likely to temper his criticism for two reasons (one, he intends to take over as PM and hopes to inherit a good relationship, and two, he wants a government which functions normally, for which the president’s goodwill is necessary); the PML-N head is more than likely to view any contact between the two as somehow suspicious, and therefore liable to criticism. 
This is more than likely to be doubly resented by the PM, first generally, because any criticism of a leading PPP man by the PML-N chief is to be resented, and secondly because the PPP man who is PM sees himself as the ‘guardian of the President-PM relationship’, no matter how rocky it might be.
While Yousaf Raza will see the prime ministership as a signal honour, he will not look kindly on the idea of giving it up when Zardari makes the call in a matter of weeks. However, his relative weakness must have been counted and has surely been duly factored in by Zardari. That causes the danger that the president might not count the Gillani period when he approaches Gillani’s successor as PM. However, it should definitely be expected that Gillani will put up a delaying fight. Dealing with him afterwards will also be a problem, just as dealing with Leghari as a former president, for a time the head of his own party, has been. In time, it goes away. And in the case of Gillani, will probably be gone sooner. It is not beyond the realm of expectation for him to accept office under Zardari in this parliament, though he probably should not. If, as is only prudent, he has decided to accept one portfolio later on, watch for him not to allow this portfolio to be either part of the general distribution, or the split-up which the parties will carry out.
But the final decision will be a choice, whether by Asif Zardari, who picked the speaker and deputy speaker, or by Bilawal Zardari Bhutto, who arrived in Pakistan in mid-term apparently specifically to name the PM, even though it seems that no one is possible except Yousaf Raza. If you look at the speaker/deputy speaker choices, one finds that Asif is not concerned with shocking choices, but with giving rewards: Dr Fehmida Mirza has been rewarded for loyalty in difficult times. Faisal Karim Kundi for his and his father’s fight, at least since the 1985 polls, in constantly contesting against Maulana Fazlur Rehman. By that standard Yousaf Raza qualifies.

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