ISLAMABAD, March 13: The crisis in the Pakistan People’s Party deepened on Thursday when co-chairman Asif Ali Zardari and senior vice-chairman Makhdoom Amin Fahim failed to resolve their differences on the choice of the party’s candidate for the prime minister’s post.

Sources told Dawn that the body language of the two leaders in their second meeting in two days indicated that “all is not well” between them.

Mr Fahim’s insistence that he is the president of the People’s Party Parliamentarians, which is only a technical issue, means that top party leaders differ on some policy matters, particularly on the process of nominating a candidate for the post of prime minister.

“I am the president of the (PPP) Parliamentarians and this post is more important for me than that of the country’s president,” Mr Fahim said when a reporter asked him whether he had been offered the post of the country’s president or that of National Assembly speaker in return for his withdrawal from the race for premiership. “I will not become speaker. I am the PPP-Parliamentarians president,” he said, adding that he was still a “very strong candidate” for the office of prime minister.

Talking to reporters after his one-to-one meeting with Mr Zardari he said they would continue to meet.

When asked how would he react if Mr Zardari nominated any other person for the prime minister’s post, Mr Fahim said he would express his opinion ‘when the time came’.

When asked to comment on reports that the PPP co-chairman himself was aspiring for the post, Mr Fahim said he had already declared that if Mr Zardari expressed his desire to become the prime minister he would be the first person to support him.

He said there were no differences between him and Mr Zardari and they met like brothers. “We dined together yesterday and we ate together again.”

PPP spokesman Farhatullah Babar told Dawn there was nothing ‘extraordinary’ about the meeting because talks among senior party leaders were a routine matter. He said the meeting was held in a cordial atmosphere.

He said Mr Fahim might meet Mr Zardari again on Friday or Saturday.