President Pervez Musharraf on Monday swore in a 24-member cabinet in which key portfolios went to the Pakistan People's Party, with Pakistan Muslim League - Nawaz members sporting black arms bands in a symbolic protest against the former General.
In a brief swearing-in ceremony held at the Aiwan-e-Sadr or presidency, Musharraf administered the oath to 11 ministers from the PPP, nine from the PML-N, two from the Awami National Party and one each from the Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam and a grouping of lawmakers from the tribal areas.
Ministers of PML-N, which has described Musharraf as an illegal and unconstitutional President and boycotted the swearing in of the new Prime Minister, wore black arms bands in a sign of protest.
PML-N chief Nawaz Sharif, who was ousted by Musharraf in a 1999 bloodless coup, had said his party had decided to 'swallow a bitter pill' by allowing its ministers to be sworn in by Musharraf, in the interest of the coalition government.
Shah Mehmood Qureshi, a 51-year-old, Cambridge-educated PPP leader, will be the new foreign minister while the defence ministry went to Chaudhry Ahmed Mukhtar. Both Qureshi and Mukhtar had earlier been in the race for the prime ministerial slot.
Ishaq Dar, a close aide of Sharif, will be the new finance minister while Sherry Rehman, a confidant of slain PPP leader Benazir Bhutto, has got the Information and Broadcasting portfolio.
He had also negotiated a package with the International Monetary Fund to cope with the economic crisis that was triggered by sanctions imposed on Pakistan following its nuclear tests in 1998.
Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gillani also attended the ceremony. The PPP and PML-N finalised the first list of ministers to be inducted into the cabinet last week following weeks of bargaining over the distribution of portfolios.
The cabinet will be expanded in phases, PPP co-chairman Asif Ali Zardari has said. The PPP also kept law and Kashmir affairs to itself.
The members of the coalition parties agreed to distribute portfolios in proportion to the number of seats they have in the National Assembly and the Senate. While PPP won 120 seats, PML -N had 90 and the Awami National Party got 10 seats in the 342-member lower house, which was elected on February 18.
Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam chief Maulana Fazlur Rehman is expected to become the chairman of the parliament's Kashmir Committee with the status of a federal minister.
The cabinet includes two women members, one each from the PML-N and the PPP.
Other ministers from the PPP are Khurshid Shah (labour and overseas Pakistanis affairs), Farooq Naek (law), Qamar-uz-Zaman Kaira (northern Areas and Kashmir affairs), Raja Pervaiz Ashraf (water and power), Naveed Qamar (ports and shipping and privatisation), Nazar Muhammad Gondal (narcotics control), Najamuddin Khan (states and frontier regions) and Mir Humayun Aziz Kurd (population welfare).
Top PML-N leader Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan will be a senior minister with charge of the communications, food and agriculture portfolios.
As the finance minister in Sharif's government in the late 1990s, Dar has framed economic policies that had export-led growth as a cornerstone.
Other ministers are Shahid Khaqan Abbasi (trade), Rana Tanvir Hussain (defence production), Ahsan Iqbal (education and minority affairs), Tehmina Daultana (women's welfare development and culture), Mehtab Abbasi (railways), and Saad Rafique (youth affairs and science and technology).
Ghulam Ahmed Bilour (local government and rural development) and Mehmood Khan Hoti (social welfare and special education) are the two ministers from the ANP.
Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam leader Rehmatullah Kakar was allocated the housing and works portfolio while Hameedullah Jan Afridi, a representative of the grouping of lawmakers from the Federally Administered Tribal Areas, was given the environment portfolio.
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