The Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) will field senior leader Makhdoom Amin Fahim against Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz chief Nawaz Sharif in the election of the new prime minister on June 5, rejecting a request to facilitate a unanimous vote.
Former federal minister Fahim heads the PPP Parliamentarians, the name under which the party is registered with the Election Commission.
He will be PPP’s candidate for the election to be held in the National Assembly on June 5.
However, the PPP’s move will not affect Nawaz Sharif, as the PML-N has a majority in the 342-member Lower House of parliament.
PML-N leaders said Nawaz’s election for an unprecedented third term as premier would be mere formality.
The PPP had earlier indicated that it might vote for Nawaz in order to continue its policy of reconciliation with other political parties.
When the PPP emerged the single largest party in the 2008 polls, its prime ministerial candidate, Yousuf Raza Gilani, was elected unopposed in the National Assembly.
However, most PPP leaders were of the view that their party would be further marginalised if it went soft on the PML-N in the Centre.
They believe Imran Khan’s Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf was a potential threat to the PPP and may deprive it of its role as opposition in the Centre if the PPP continued its reconciliation policy and became a “friendly opposition”.
PPP Secretary General Sardar Latif Khosa said his party was not going to leave the field open for candidates of other parties in the PM’s election.
“My party is the second largest party with 38 seats in the National Assembly and it is not going to be subservient to any other party,” he said.
The Tehreek-e-Insaf, the third largest party in parliament with 31 seats, has fielded Javed Hashmi for the PM’s slot.