Names of nearly a dozen prominent Pakistan People's Party (PPP) leaders are being considered by their co-chairman Asif Zardari to accommodate them in different senior official positions. Among others, they include Latif Khosa, Farzana Raza, Babar Awan, Jehangir Badr, Nabil Gabool, Farhatullah Babar Samina Ghurki, Sardar Asseff Ahmed Ali and Dr. Firdous Ashaq, an informed PPP source told this correspondent. A few of them would be inducted in the federal cabinet while others would be given posts like the attorney general of Pakistan, provincial governors, replacing some of the incumbent ones etc. Counting their different plus points, some of these leaders were strongly hopefuls that they would be taken in the federal cabinet in the first phase, but they weren't chosen because of its size that made them unhappy for the time being. Zardari genuinely wanted to immediately accommodate some of them in the first phase but couldn't for having just a few positions available, the PPP leader said adding that a majority of them would be certainly adjusted shortly. Another PPP leader said that the cabinet would have nearly forty ministers when its full formation would be completed. He said the induction of the next installment of the cabinet was not far away. These aspirants are a combination of old loyalists, who stood with the PPP in its most difficult times, and new faces. Dr. Firdous is a new entrant in the PPP, who joined it after leaving the Pakistan Muslim League-Q (PML-Q) a few months before the last parliamentary elections. She defeated National Assembly Speaker Chaudhry Amir Hussain in the Feb. 18 general polls with a huge margin. Asseff Ahmed Ali rejoined the PPP just before the elections although during his politically inactive period he had been sympathetic towards this party. He was a leading contender for the portfolio of the foreign minister. Farahnaz Isphani, wife of Hussain Haqqani, was also a principal aspirant for the cabinet position, but was not preferred in the first phase because her husband was appointed ambassador to Washington. __
