ISLAMABAD, Feb 29: The Pakistan People’s Party, the largest party in the newly elected National Assembly, is still undecided about its candidate for the office of the prime minister and sources attributed the delay to co-chairman Asif Zardari’s reluctance to nominate Makhdoom Amin Fahim for the post.

The sources said some PPP leaders, considered to be close confidants of Mr Zardari, were deliberately spreading confusion over the issue of premiership by presenting different names as probable candidates.

They said that almost all the party leaders in Sindh and a number of MNAs-elect from Punjab were backing Mr Fahim while some were lobbying for Makhdoom Shah Mehmood Qureshi, Syed Yusuf Raza Gillani and Chaudhry Ahmed Mukhtar -- all from Punjab.

The issue was complicated further as Mr Zardari allowed the guessing game to go on without even taking his close aides into confidence on merits or demerits of each of the probables.

According to a reliable source, except for Chaudhry Ahmed Mukhtar, the other three probables for the prime minister’s office were at the Zardari House till late Friday night.

Some PPP leaders believe that Mr Zardari is reluctant to nominate Mr Fahim because he (Mr Zardari) himself was a contender for the office.

“It is natural. It will be difficult for Mr Zardari to ask a person like Mr Fahim to relinquish the office of the prime minister for him after three months or so,” said a senior party leader when asked about reasons for the delay in naming the party’s candidate.

He confirmed that some “Zardari friends” had launched a “whispering campaign” within the party to highlight alleged weak points of Mr Fahim. “There is a campaign going on within the party to malign Mr Fahim and some senior leaders are also involved in it,” he added.

He said the “Zardari friends” were telling others that Mr Fahim was close to some people in the establishment and he had been engaged in negotiations with them over the past six years. The PPP leader, who did not want to be named, said he had even been told by one of the campaigners that President Musharraf had asked Mr Zardari to appoint Mr Fahim as prime minister and the PPP co-chairman did not want to see a Musharraf’s man as prime minister.

On Friday, Mr Fahim met US Ambassador Anne W. Patterson at the residence of PPP Senator Enver Baig and some party leaders alleged that the meeting had taken place without the knowledge of Mr Zardari.

However, Mr Baig told Dawn that the meeting had been held at the request of the US ambassador and Mr Zardari was fully aware of it. He said as the PPP was a government-in-waiting, the US and other countries wanted to know about its future policies.

PPP spokesman Farhatullah Babar, however, denied that there was any rift or division in the party over the issue of premiership and said that an announcement in this respect would be made in a couple of days to end such speculations.

He said all members of the PPP’s central executive committee and parliamentary group had been alerted for a possible meeting in the next few days to designate their parliamentary leader.

MEETINGS: National Party chief Abdul Hayee Baloch and former minister Jahangir Khan Tareen separately called on Mr Zardari on Friday and discussed possibilities of cooperation in the future set-up.