Pakistan elects first woman speaker

Legislators elected Pakistan’s first female speaker of parliament yesterday, seating a follower — and lookalike — of assassinated former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto.

Fehmida Mirza’s elevation reflected the air of liberalism blowing through the country’s politics since voters delivered a resounding defeat to backers of President Pervez Musharraf.

However, many Pakistanis are warily watching the victorious parties, worried if politicians whose civilian governments in the 1990s were tainted by corruption and ineptitude will be able to deal with economic hardships and Islamic militants.

In a first sign of trouble, the leaders are struggling to agree on a prime minister. There was less of a problem in picking the speaker.

Mirza, a businesswoman and physician elected to parliament three times, won 249 of the 324 votes cast in the National Assembly, parliament’s lower house. Israr Tareen, a coal-mining magnate and Musharraf supporter, got only 70. Five ballots were invalid.

“Being a woman, it gives me immense pride and happiness to see you on that chair,” Saima Akhtar Bharwana, a lawmaker from Bhutto’s Pakistan People’s Party, said after Mirza was sworn in.