After winning landmark parliamentary elections on Feb. 18, Pakistan People's Party met to select its nomination for the next prime minister. The PPP has vowed to form a coalition government with other opposition parties, shutting out loyalists of President Pervez Musharraf, who could face impeachment by a hostile parliament that is due to convene later this month.

On Thursday, the party failed to agree on a candidate, largely due to discord over front-runner candidate Makhdoom Amin Fahim, a stalwart Bhutto aide, reports the Agence France-Presse. He is one of four candidates whom the party is expected to nominate, reports the Associated Press.

The Bush administration is anxious to ensure that the tensions between pro-US Musharraf and his opponents don't blunt Pakistan's resolve to combat militant violence, particularly in its tribal belt along the troubled border with Afghanistan. After a lull, Pakistan has been roiled by a recent upsurge in suicide attacks. A power blackout in Karachi has also drawn attention to economic challenges facing the next government.

In a possible sign of easing political tensions, on Wednesday an anticorruption court threw out five charges against PPP leader Asif Ali Zardari, the widower of assassinated former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto. The charges dated from Ms. Bhutto's two terms in office, when Mr. Zardari was accused of massive graft and later jailed on what he called politically motivated charges, reports the Associated Press.

Property seized from Mr. Zardari will be immediately returned to him, while the court is expected next week to quash two other outstanding corruption cases against him. His lawyer, Farooq Naek, praised the Supreme Court for upholding a controversial ordinance issued last year by Musharraf that gave an amnesty to politicians and bureaucrats in corruption cases prior to 1999, when Musharraf staged a coup. The ordinance was widely seen at the time as a conciliatory offering by Musharraf to Bhutto as she prepared to return from exile.

Asked whether the end of the corruption cases made it easier for the party to work with Musharraf, Naek said: "We do not believe in politics of revenge, and we believe that there should be coexistence between democratic forces."

While Zardari is not currently a candidate for prime minister, several other senior party officials are vying for the job, and a decision may be reached Thursday, reports Agence France-Presse. Mr. Fahim, the front-runner, has struck a conciliatory tone towards Musharraf, telling CNN last month that there were no immediate plans to oust the embattled former Army chief.

Another contender is Ahmed Mukhtar, an industrialist who is close to Zardari and who defeated the chief of the pro-Musharraf party in the elections, party officials said.

Also in the running are Yousaf Raza Gilani, who served as parliamentary speaker for a time under Bhutto, and Shah Mehmood Qureshi, head of the PPP's Punjab branch, they said.

Pakistan's daily newspaper Dawn says that Mr. Fahim is a veteran lawmaker from the PPP's power base in Sindh Province, where Ms. Bhutto's family lives. Political commentators have argued, however, that the party may nominate a candidate from the populous Punjab region to bolster its standing in the province. In last month's election, the Pakistan Muslim League (N) party led by former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif headed the field in Punjab. Mr. Sharif has agreed to join a PPP-led coalition, but the rivalry between the two parties is unlikely to end.

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