He immediately issued maiden order to release deposed judges of higher judiciary including chief justice Iftikhar Chaudhry detained by Musharraf since his proclamation of emergency rule in last November. Riot police blocking an avenue leading to Chaudhry's official residence few hundred yards from the parliament building urgently removed barricades and let lawyers, media and civil society activists meet the deposed judge.
Experts believe the legal question on the legitimacy of Musharraf's re-election in October last year while still being military chief will re-emerge once Chaudhry is reinstated as agreed by PPP and PML-N. Gillani told his voters he respected and would implement the agreement between PPP co-chairman and former premier Nawaz Sharif that called for a parliamentary resolution to reinstate the deposed judges.
Gillani earlier secured a one-on-one contest against Chaudhry Pervaiz Ellahi of Pakistan Muslim League-Q by 264 votes to just 42. Members from Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N), Awami National Party (ANP), Jamiat Ulamae Islam-Fazl (JUI-F) and Muttahida Quomi Movement (MQM) voted for him.
Several hundred PPP die hard workers, as they are called, cheered Gillani's election with clapping and chants such as "long live Bhutto", "long live Benazir" from galleries for visitors. But parliamentarians joined their sloganeering only when they raised the chants of "Go Musharraf go".
Speaker Dr Fehmida Mirza and some of PPP heavyweights struggled to control undisciplined workers of their party. A teenage son of Benazir and symbolic head of PPP, Bilawal Bhutto Zardari, watched with tear oozing out of his eyes Gilani taking the chair her mother could have taken had she not been killed in a suicide attack in an election rally last year.
Gillani, along with a few members of his cabinet, will be sworn in by Musharraf at a ceremony on Tuesday morning. The National Assembly will start a fresh session this week to give a vote of confidence to him. Delivering an emotional but a calculated speech to the National Assembly immediately after his election, Gillani said new parliament would ask the United Nations through a resolution to probe Benazir's murder.
PPP has constantly been demanding an investigation by the world agency after last December killing of his chairperson but Musharraf kept on turning down their demand. Another such resolution, he said, would apologise to nation on the 1979 hanging of PPP founding Chairman Zulfikar Ali Bhutto.
Bhutto, the then prime minister, was hanged on a dubious charge of hatching a murder conspiracy by a court under the military regime of General Ziaul Haq. He announced to implement two PPP accords with former premier Nawaz Sharif.
A recent one calling for the restoration of deposed judges and another between Benazir and Sharif three years ago asking for eliminating the role of military from politics. Gillani listed supremacy of the parliament, uphold of the constitution and rule of law as imperatives to run Pakistan properly.