Musharraf swears in old foe as new PM

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan (CNN) -- Yousaf Raza Gilani was sworn in as Pakistan's new prime minister Tuesday by the same man he blames for jailing him for five years -- President Pervez Musharraf.

The swearing-in ceremony took place at Musharraf's residence in Islamabad. The men stood side by side in front of a bank of microphones, Gilani repeating the oath as Musharraf recited it.

Bad blood between the president and the opposition runs so deep that several top leaders boycotted the ceremony despite its historic nature. The room broke into applause as the oath of office ended, with several standing up and shouting the name of Benazir Bhutto, slain prime minister and former leader of Gilani's Pakistan People's Party.

Gilani spoke by telephone with President Bush and told him that Pakistan would "continue to fight terrorism," according to a statement from Gilani's office, The Associated Press reported.

Bush pledged to strengthen America's "friendship" with Pakistan and invited Gilani to visit "at his convenience," the statement added.

On Tuesday, a key figure in the government, former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, told two U.S. envoys his country was "no longer a one-man show."

Sharif, speaking later to reporters, said he told Deputy Secretary of State John Negroponte and Assistant Secretary of State for South Asia Richard Boucher the new parliament would decide how Pakistan should tackle Islamic extremism. See Negroponte's arrival amid protests »

Gilani was elected prime minister Monday by an overwhelming parliamentary majority. Immediately afterward, he directly challenged Musharraf.

He ordered the release of dozens of judges that Musharraf put under house arrest last November. He also said he would push for the United Nations to investigate the assassination of Bhutto, an opposition leader and former head of his Pakistan People's Party.

Musharraf had balked at previous calls by the PPP for an independent U.N. inquiry, instead inviting detectives from Britain's Scotland Yard to assist Pakistani authorities to come up with a precise cause of Bhutto's death.

With Gilani officially sworn in as prime minister, Pakistanis will await to see whether he will live up to the PPP's campaign promises to clip what remains of Musharraf's already diminishing influence.

Musharraf's power has significantly eroded since his ruling party was dealt a decisive blow in last month's parliamentary elections.

The PPP and another opposition party, the Pakistan Muslim League-N, led by a former prime minister Nawaz Sharif, won the majority of National Assembly seats and took over as the ruling coalition.

A coalition led by Musharraf's party still retains a considerable number of seats in the Senate.

Gilani, 55, is a stalwart Bhutto supporter, having served stints in her cabinet during her two terms as prime minister, from 1988 to 1990 and 1993 to 1996. During Bhutto's second term, Gilani was elected the speaker of the National Assembly.

In 1997, Bhutto was voted out of office by Sharif. Two years later, Musharraf usurped power in a bloodless coup.

Musharraf's military government set up an anti-corruption agency that brought Gilani to trial on charges of abusing his authority.

According to local media reports at the time, prosecutors accused Gilani of putting more than 500 unqualified people from his constituency on the government payroll when he was house speaker.

He was thrown in jail in 2001, and spent five years in prison on corruption charges.

Gilani and his supporters have consistently claimed the charges were trumped up. They said Musharraf was pressuring members of the opposition, including Gilani, to defect to his side.

"Since I was unable to oblige them, they decided to convict me so that I could be disqualified and an example set for other political leaders who may learn to behave as good boys," he told Pakistan's Dawn newspaper at the time.

Gilani's prison stint was seen as a mark of loyalty within the PPP. Current party leader and Bhutto's widower, Asif Ali Zardari, cites the jail sentence as one of the reasons he nominated Gilani as prime minister.

"The new prime minister spent four years in jail, said no to the many offers of the establishment, faced character assassination attempts, he knows who the enemies of democracy are and he also knows how to strengthen democracy in Pakistan," Zardari was quoted as telling the newspaper The News on Monday.

Lawmakers on Monday elected Gilani as the country's new prime minister with 264 votes. An opponent from the party backing Musharraf received 42.

The ousted judges that he ordered freed Monday are at the heart of the political crisis that began in Pakistan last year. Watch Pakistanis celebrate judges' release »

Dozens of judges were arrested -- some jailed, others placed under house arrest -- under a state of emergency order Musharraf issued in November.

The arrests included nearly all of the Supreme Court justices, days before they were set to rule on the legitimacy of Musharraf's third term in office. He had been re-elected president just a month earlier by a parliament that critics contend was stacked with his supporters.

As prime minister, Gilani is also expected to uphold the Charter for Democracy, a document that would restore the powers of the prime minister.

According to the country's constitution, the chief executive of the country has always been the prime minister.

But Musharraf stripped away many of those powers after his coup, including the power to dissolve parliament and appoint military chiefs.

Finally, analysts expect Gilani and the new government to move more cautiously on counterterrorism issues than the United States would like. Musharraf has been a key U.S. ally in its battle against Islamic extremists. But many Pakistanis disapproved of the way Musharraf has carried out his end of the "war on terror."

The United States has welcomed Gilani's election, with White House spokeswoman Dana Perino saying Monday that the country looked forward "to working in partnership with the government of Pakistan." E-mail to a friend

Copyright 2008 CNN. All rights reserved.This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. Associated Press contributed to this report.

All About Pakistan • Pakistan Peoples Party • Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz • Pervez Musharraf • Benazir Bhutto