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Officials: Pakistani prime minister resigns
(Agencies)
Updated: 2004-06-26 21:49

Pakistani Prime Minister Zafarullah Khan Jamali resigned Saturday, two senior government officials told The Associated Press, following months of speculation that his relationship with the country's military ruler was strained.

``He will announce his resignation and will give reasons,'' a senior ruling party member said on condition of anonymity. A Cabinet minister, who also declined to be named, confirmed Jamali was stepping down.

Jamali was expected to announce his decision at a meeting of his PML-Q party later in the day, several officials said. The resignation was expected to mean the dissolution of his Cabinet.

Information Minister Sheikh Rashid Ahmed said he couldn't confirm the news, and denied that he had been informed that he was out of a job.

``Just wait and see,'' he said.

Rumors have circulated for months that relations between Jamali and the country's power broker, President Gen. Pervez Musharraf, had chilled. Jamali had sought to quash the rumors, even professing his ``love'' of the general, but Musharraf offered him no clear public support.

Jamali's office on Saturday had no official comment.

Under powers granted under constitutional amendments after Musharraf's 1999 coup, the general has the power to dismiss Jamali and Parliament if he chooses, but it appeared that the prime minister had stepped down rather than be fired.

Jamali and Musharraf met earlier Saturday for what Jamali spokesman Majeed Niazi described at the time as discussions on enlarging the Cabinet.

The stock market in Pakistan's southern city of Karachi fell Friday on rumors Jamali might step down or be dismissed. Investors worry that no clear successor is in place to help guide Pakistan as it slowly edges back from full military rule.

Azeem Chaudhry, a senior official in the ruling PML-Q party, also had no confirmation, but said the party leadership had called a meeting for later Saturday.

Pakistani newspapers have reported that the PML-Q party is discussing whether to replace Jamali with Commerce Minister Humayun Akhtar.

Jamali denied late Friday he had tendered his resignation or had been asked to step down.

``They should accept it when the prime minister of a country is talking to you and telling you that there is no such thing,'' he said on state-run Pakistan Television.

One of the country's most-seasoned politicians, Jamali became prime minister in November 2002 after the PML-Q, which supports Musharraf, won the most seats in elections the month before.

His appointment helped ease concerns in the West about the rise to prominence of ultraconservative religious parties. But those worries flared anew last month when Maulana Fazlur Rahman, a pro-Taliban cleric, became leader of the opposition.

Soft-spoken and a little stiff, Jamali is a powerful figure in his southern home province of Baluchistan. But as the choice of Musharraf, he has also drawn stiff criticism from Pakistan's two other major political parties _ the PML-N and the Pakistan People's Party.

Both parties' leaders are in exile, embittering a political climate heated by a string of assassinations of politicians as well as sectarian violence and deadly fighting between the Pakistani Army and al-Qaida militants near the Afghan border.

On Saturday, gunmen riding a motorcycle sprayed a car carrying Bin Yamin Rizvi, a local PML-N leader, with bullets in the eastern city of Lahore, killing him along with his driver and bodyguard.

Lahore police chief Tariq Saleem said he had no leads on who was behind the attack.

But a spokesman for the party condemned the assassination and blamed Musharraf for ``failing to keep law and order.''

``Musharraf and his team have failed,'' Sadique al-Farooq said.

Two members of the Pakistan People's Party have been killed in the southern city of Karachi this year.

Musharraf has endorsed a constitutional amendment that theoretically would force him to quit as chief of the armed forces on Jan. 1, 2005. He would remain as civilian president until his term expires in 2007. 

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