ISLAMABAD, June 27: The People's Party Parliamentarians has decided to contest the election for the office of the prime minister to be held on Tuesday and nominated Makhdoom Amin Fahim as its candidate against Chaudhry Shujaat Hussain.

"(The PPP) has decided to take part in the election. The party's president and chairman of the Alliance for the Restoration of Democracy Makhdoom Amin Fahim has been nominated as the party's candidate," said PPP's spokesman Senator Farhatullah Khan Babar and MNA Manzoor Wassan while talking to journalists after the parliamentary party's meeting here on Sunday.

Mr Babar said the meeting had decided that other component parties of the ARD would also be taken into confidence on Makhdoom Fahim's nomination. So far, he said, no formal ARD meeting had been held.

A formal meeting of the alliance is likely to be held on Monday morning as most of heads the Pakistan Muslim League-N were in Lahore on Sunday to attend the funeral of Pir Binyamin Rizvi.

Mr Babar said neither the PPP nor the Muttahida Majlis-i-Amal had contacted each other after Mr Jamali's resignation.

The PPP senator said the party would raise the demand that parliament and the nation should be taken into confidence on why Mr Jamali had been asked to resign. "The party believes that there is something very serious behind the resignation," Mr Babar said.

He said only 12 hours before submitting his resignation, Mr Jamali had announced that he was not going to resign. Moreover, he said, parliament had reposed confidence in Mr Jamali by approving the federal budget only two days ago.

He said Mr Jamali's removal showed that army generals were not ready to tolerate civil rule in the country.

Meanwhile, PPP chairperson Benazir Bhutto said in a statement the opposition would field a candidate for the slot of prime minister notwithstanding the fact that the ruling party had a majority.

"Mr Jamali's resignation hides more than it reveals and (the PPP) demands that people be taken into confidence about the real reasons behind his resignation," she said.

Ms Bhutto said Mr Jamali had accepted Gen Musharraf as his 'boss' and he was installed into power by Gen Musharraf and the establishment, who bussed the parliamentarians to the ISI headquarters prior to his election. She said Mr Jamali's unceremonious and abrupt departure demonstrated that the establishment could never accept politicians even if the politicians were handpicked by the establishment.

The PPP chairperson said the choice of Chaudhry Shujaat Hussain as the new prime minister was controversial as he was facing an election reference after being declared a 'bank defaulter'.

The PPP chairperson said Mr Jamali's exit was the beginning of the collapse of the artificial edifice raised by Gen Musharraf. She said Mr Jamali's ouster meant that the Musharraf regime was in its last days.

She said the political structure raised by the military was primarily designed to perpetuate dictatorship in the country under the guise of a democratic order. She said the present dispensation was not based on the will of the people and was doomed to collapse. "The first pillar has fallen and other pillars will follow soon," she added.