ISLAMABAD, March 5: After going adrift for a while, focus seems to have reverted to Makhdoom Amin Fahim before the parliamentary group of the Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) meets on Thursday to pick its prime ministerial nominee to lead a landmark coalition of election winners.

Mr Fahim has been the front-runner for the prime minister’s office after the PPP emerged as the largest party in the Feb 18 elections and party co-chairman Asif Ali Zardari said he would not be in the run as he had not contested for a National Assembly seat.

But dark clouds of uncertainty appeared on the horizon recently in what seemed to be an orchestrated whispering campaign suggesting a sidelining of the party old guard from the main PPP power base of Sindh province, though there was no indication if possible alternatives mentioned were involved in the potentially damaging exercise so soon after the party’s election victory and while the new coalition of former political foes was yet to take shape.

However, the nomination of Syed Qaim Ali Shah, a federal minister in the 1970s in the cabinet of then prime minister Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, for the Sindh province chief minister and two other senior party figures as provincial assembly speaker and PPP parliamentary group leader signalled a possible concern about the sensitivities of the party rank and file and dangers in upsetting the presumed preferences of assassinated party leader Benazir Bhutto.

No agenda has been announced for Thursday’s meeting of the PPP’s newly elected National Assembly members --- including those elected to the reserved seats for women and minorities and independents who have joined the party --- which is due to begin at 11am at Mr Zardari’s Islamabad residence.

But party sources said a formal choice of the prime ministerial candidate would be the most important moot point.

PPP spokesman Farhatullah Babar said the gathering would be in furtherance of meetings of party leadership held so far after the elections and described it as a “process of crystallisation of decisions”. He declined to elaborate or speak about the possible candidates to be considered for the prime ministership or whether the meeting would also discuss the party’s planned coalition with the Pakistan Muslim League-N (PML-N) and the National Awami Party as well as proposed association with other groups.

Previous media speculations about the chances of Mr Fahim’s selection have mentioned former National Assembly speaker Syed Yousaf Raza Gillani, Punjab PPP president Makhdoom Shah Mahmood Qureshi and former commerce minister Chaudhry Ahmad Mukhtar as possible alternatives, mainly on the ground that the PPP must have a prime minister from the Punjab in order to strengthen its position in the province where its one-time adversary and new ally Pakistan Muslim League-N has done much better on Feb 18.

But none of these figures has publicly expressed a desire for the office at the cost of the man who has led the party’s electoral and parliamentary arm --- PPP Parliamentarians --- since the 2002 election and who is known to have refused President Pervez Musharraf’s offer to take the job at the time on the condition he would not do then self-exiled Ms Bhutto’s bidding.

Mr Zardari had first mentioned Mr Fahim as Ms Bhutto’s choice for prime minister after the party central executive committee (CEC) meeting in Garhi Khuda Bakhsh only days after the assassination of the party leader and said the CEC would take any further decision.

But party sources said no new meeting of the CEC --- to which at least four new members have been nominated by Mr Zardari in recent days --- had been called to discuss the issue, while the PPP and its other coalition partners --- PML-N and the Awami National Pray --- are pressing for an early session of the National Assembly so a new government could take reins of power in the face of perceived manoeuvres of President Musharraf to regroup his defeated loyalists to defend him against future dangers to his office.