The New Nation - Internet Edition

AFP, Islamabad

Pakistan's parliament on Wednesday elected the first female speaker in the country's 60-year history, a loyalist from the party of assassinated former prime minister Benazir Bhutto.

Fahmida Mirza, 52, could play a crucial role in a looming showdown between a coalition government led by Bhutto's party and President Pervez Musharraf, whose political allies lost heavily in elections a month ago.

MPs pounded their desks in approval as the the purple-veiled former medical doctor was announced the winner with 249 votes from the 342-seat lower house of parliament, or national assembly.

"Fahmida Mirza is declared to have been elected as the speaker of the national assembly," outgoing speaker Amir Hussain announced after a day-long vote before handing over the speaker's chair.

Mirza, a veteran politician from Bhutto's home province of Sindh, then took the oath as the first woman to hold the position in this deeply conservative Islamic nation of 160 million people. "This is my third tenure in the national assembly and I believe it is time that we all work together to address the challenges facing the country," Mirza told reporters before the session.