The Prime Minister’s office in Islamabad. (AFP)

Islamabad, June 26 (Reuters): Pakistan’s Prime Minister Zafarullah Khan Jamali, resigned today, is known as a pedestrian and cautious politician, the characteristics which some believe may have cost him his job.

Jamali resigned 19 months after he was sworn in, amid speculation that he failed to deal with a troublesome opposition in parliament and did not endorse powerful President Pervez Musharraf’s reforms aggressively enough.

The soft-spoken Jamali was seen as an establishment figure, unlikely to challenge Musharraf from day one.

He served three times, though briefly, as chief minister of his native Baluchistan province, most recently in 1996.

Born in January 1944, Jamali started in politics as a provincial minister in Baluchistan and was later a deputy minister for local government and rural development in the government of former military dictator Zia-ul-Haq, who died in a plane crash in 1988.

Jamali won a National Assembly, or lower house seat, in the 1985 general election and became minister for water and power in the government of former Prime Minister Muhammad Khan Junejo.

His family, an influential land owning Baluch tribe, has been active in politics for the last 50 years.

During his curtailed tenure in charge of Pakistan, Jamali has played a secondary role to Musharraf, who political analysts say has refused to hand over the reins of power to civilian rulers despite making a public commitment to nurture democracy.

International criticism of Musharraf’s leadership has been muted, perhaps in recognition of his pivotal role in the US-led war on terror.

Jamali has a master’s degree in geography and has served as chief selector of the national hockey team, having been a player while in college. His relatives also call him Jabal — or mountain in the Baluch language — a nickname he earned as a young man for not crying after a bad injury during a hockey match.

Sharif party man shot

Gunmen shot dead a Pakistani provincial leader from former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif’s party today in Lahore, the second such murder in the country this month, police said.

Binyamin Rizvi, a former provincial minister in Sharif’s government, was travelling in his car when unidentified gunmen ambushed him near Lahore’s main university.