MP Fahmida Mirza in Islamabad on Tuesday. (AP)

Islamabad, March 18 (AP): The party of slain Opposition leader Benazir Bhutto nominated today a close associate of her widower Asif Ali Zardari to be the National Assembly’s first female Speaker.

However, divisions remained over who should be the next Prime Minister.

Fahmida Mirza, a businesswoman and three-time member of parliament, will become the first woman speaker of the Assembly, or lower house, if approved as expected in a parliamentary vote tomorrow.

Her husband is a long-time supporter of Zardari, Bhutto’s widower and now party leader, thought to have a final say over the party’s nominations. “For me there would be no government versus Opposition ... As Speaker, the whole house would be equal in my eyes,” Mirza said today.

Faisal Karim Kundi, who defeated a pro-Taliban incumbent for his parliamentary seat in Pakistan’s volatile northwest, was nominated by the party as deputy Speaker.

The new parliament convened yesterday for the first time since opponents of US-backed President Pervez Musharraf swept to victory in last month’s elections. They promise to slash his powers but face challenges themselves, including high inflation and raging Islamic militancy.

“Broken institutions are being handed to us and Musharraf is keeping powers for himself,” said former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, who was ousted by Musharraf in a 1999 military coup and sent into exile until last November.

“God willing, we will take those powers from him,” Sharif said late yesterday at a dinner with MPs from his party.

The nuclear-armed nation of 160 million people has been under military rule for most of its 60-year history, including the past eight after Musharraf seized power following a series of civilian governments that were accused of corruption and incompetence in the 1990s.

With the second largest number of parliament seats, Sharif’s followers have pledged to form a coalition government with Bhutto’s Pakistan People’s Party, which won the largest number.

It falls to the PPP to name a Prime Minister, and party spokesman Farhatullah Babar said today an announcement would be made before a parliamentary vote by next week.

Neither Mirza nor Kundi were mentioned as possible candidates for Prime Minister. But there is speculation that if Mirza, who is from Sindh province, becomes Speaker, the Prime Minister would likely hail from the largest province of Punjab.

The initial front-runner for the job, Makhdoom Amin Fahim, has expressed frustration that his nomination has not been announced. Shortly after Bhutto’s December 27 assassination in a suicide attack, Zardari told reporters that Bhutto had wanted Fahim to be the party’s candidate for Prime Minister.