Pakistan's National Assembly, lower house of the parliament, Tuesday elected Chaudhry Shujat Hussain the new leader of the house, who will be sworn in as new prime minister later.  

Shujat Hussain, the candidate of the ruling Pakistan Muslim League (Q) and its allies, bagged 190 votes in the house of 342 while his only rival Makhdoom Amin Faheem, the candidate for the main opposition grouping, the Alliance for the Restoration of Democracy, bagged only 76 votes.

The opposition parties remained divided and the candidate put forward by former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto's Pakistan People's Party was only being backed by the moderate groups.

The alliance of six-religious parties, the Muttahida Majlis-e-Amal (MMA), did not take part in the election and its members remained abstain.

The MMA had earlier announced support for the opposition if Javed Hashmi, the jailed leader of the Pakistan Muslim League (Sharif) group led by exiled former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, was to be an opposition candidate.

The elections took place after Zafarullah Khan Jamali resigned as premier on Saturday in mysterious circumstances. Jamali did not give any reasons for his resignation and only said that he was abiding by his party's decision to step down.

Political observers think Jamali resigned mainly because of internal party differences. However, he put forward Hussain's name to try to dispel the impression of any such differences. Repeated statements from the government denied any differences within the governing party.

Shujat Hussain has already announced that he is expected to be replaced within a few months once outgoing finance minister, Shaukat Aziz, finds a seat in the National Assembly to be eligible for the office of the prime minister.

Aziz is likely to take over as premier for the rest of the term once he is elected to the National Assembly.

According to Hussain, this was being done on the instruction and advice of President Pervez Musharraf, who wants the country's leadership to be in the hands of someone capable of turning around the economy.

(Xinhua News Agency June 30, 2004)