With just two days to go for the maiden session of Pakistan’s new National Assembly, the PPP on Friday said it would announce the name of the prime minister next week amid a continuing tussle in the party on the issue.Differences had cropped up in Pakistan People’s Party which will lead the coalition government after party vice chairman Makhdoom Amin Fahim, who was widely tipped to be the front-runner, was sidelined by chairman Asif Ali Zardari.PPP spokesman Farhatullah Babar said the party’s candidate for premiership will be announced next week.Other PPP leaders said Zardari had not yet made a final decision. The first session of the new National Assembly has been convened by President Pervez Musharraf on Monday.The PPP’s parliamentary party will meet at Zardari’s residence here on Sunday but party sources said it was unlikely that the prime ministerial candidate will be named at this gathering.They said the decision on the nominee might be made at a joint parliamentary party meeting of coalition partners PPP, PML-N, Awami National Party and Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam — to be held on Monday.The PPP’s nominees for the posts of speaker and deputy speaker of the National Assembly will chosen tomorrow, party leaders said.Fahim, whose candidature for premiership ran into problems following allegations that he had met Musharraf and other top members of the military establishment, has asserted that he remains a “solid and strong” contender. He has spurned the posts of Speaker and President that were reportedly offered to him.
