Mystical coincidence

Pakistan's new prime minister marries his son on election day

Today the Pakistani parliament will elect a new prime minister . But it is already clear that he will be the 55-year-old deputy head of the Pakistan People's Party (PPP), member of the current parliament, Yusuf Reza Gilani. Tomorrow he will be sworn in by President Pervez Musharraf, who announced that the country has “entered a period of real democracy.”

On March 22, Gilani’s candidacy was approved by the winners of the February parliamentary elections: the PPP, the Pakistan Muslim League of ex-Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, the Muttahida nationalist party from the country’s largest province of Sindh, and the Secular Pashtun People’s Party of the North-West Frontier Province. Their joint statement was read out by Fahmida Mirza, the first female speaker in Pakistan's history and a longtime ally of Asif Ali Zardari, who led the PPP after the assassination of his wife, former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto, in December. In Pakistan, where only a parliamentarian can be prime minister, many believe that Gilani will serve in his new post for three to four months until 51-year-old Zardari himself becomes a deputy and will head the cabinet.

Gilani belongs to an influential Shia family that has produced many political and religious leaders in Pakistan. It is believed that the ancestors of this family lived in ancient times on the territory of Persia.

The new prime minister is called the “most loyal supporter” of the Bhutto clan, although he began his career in 1978 under dictator Zia ul-Haq, who executed Benazir’s father, Prime Minister Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto, in 1979, and served as a minister more than once in the 1980s. But in 1988, Gilani asked Benazir Bhutto to accept him into the PPP, and when she asked why he needed a distressed party, he replied that he chose the first between honor, wisdom and wealth.

In the 1990s, when the PPP was in power twice, Gilani twice held ministerial posts, and in 1993-1997 he was elected speaker of parliament. After the dismissal of Prime Minister Sharif by Musharraf in 1999, the ex-speaker was accused of corruption: he allegedly illegally employed 600 people from his constituency in the civil service. Later, the charges were annulled, but Gilani was in prison from February 2001 to October 2006, which brought him new sympathy from the Bhutto spouses, who were also accused of corruption (the same Zardari spent a total of 11 years behind bars on corruption charges).

Gilani promises to end terrorism through negotiations and to reinstate all judges dismissed by Musharraf by April 16. The future prime minister is married, he has a daughter and four sons, the eldest today marries the granddaughter of Pir Pagara, the head of an influential mystical Sufi order in Sindh. Gilani's maternal aunt is the wife of Pir Pagara.

Alexander SAMOKHOTKIN