Qureshi to be Pakistan’s Foreign Minister?

ISLAMABAD: Shah Mahmood Qureshi, a respected leader of the Pakistan People’s Party from southern Punjab, is expected to be named Pakistan’s Foreign Minister in a 24-member federal Cabinet that will be sworn in on Monday.

Mr. Qureshi was in the running for Prime Minister and once he was out of that, the Cambridge-educated politician was considered a natural choice to head the Foreign Ministry.

According to a well-publicised but not yet official list, Sherry Rehman, who headed the “information secretariat” of the PPP and was one of its most articulate spokespersons, gets the crucial Information Ministry. Ms. Rehman was a journalist before entering politics.

Chaudhary Ahmed Mukhtar, who was also in the running for Prime Minister, has been given the Defence portfolio, while the Kashmir Affairs and Northern Areas portfolio has gone to Kamar Zaman Kaira

The all-important Interior Ministry has already been spoken for, with the appointment of Rehman Malik, a close aide of the late Benazir Bhutto and a former boss of the Federal Investigation Authoity, as the Prime Minister’s Special Adviser on Interior and Narctoics.

Mr. Rehman, who has been accorded the rank and protocol of a federal Minister, is the Interior Minister in all but name, possibly to sidestep the requirement that a member of the Cabinet should be an elected representative.

Not counting the Interior portfolio, 11 Cabinet slots have gone to the PPP, eight to the Pakistan Muslim League (N), two to the Awami National Party and one each to the Jamiat-e-Ulema Islami and a National Assembly member from the tribal areas.

President Pervez Musharraf will administer the oath of office. Members of the Pakistan Muslim league (N), which does not recognise General(retd) Mushaaf as a legitimate President, have agreed to be sworn in by him. PML(N) leader Nawaz Sharif described it as “a bitter pill that has to be swallowed for the greater good.”