by Bronwyn Curran
ISLAMABAD, July 31 (AFP) - Shaukat Aziz, the prime minister-in-waiting who narrowly escaped a suicide car bomb attack Friday night, is a smooth global banker anointed by President Pervez Musharraf largely because of his freedom from political ties.
An economics wizard with a distinguished career as a Citibank executive, Aziz was summonsed by Musharraf to become finance minister shortly after his October 1999 coup.
He had already helped bring Pakistan's economy back from the brink of bankruptcy following international sanctions over its 1998 nuclear tests.
Aziz, 55, has been by Musharraf's side ever since, and in June was chosen to take over from Zafarullah Jamali, the tribal chief from Pakistan's most backwards province who resigned after rumours that Musharraf was fed up with his 18-month performance.
Urbane, clean-shaven, and always neatly turned out in fine-cut suits, Aziz strikes a sharp contrast to his predecessor Jamali, a portly, bearded feudal landowner from a powerful tribe in the impoverished southwest desert province Baluchistan who is usually seen draped in bulky traditional robes.
As a senator, Aziz must first make the transition to the parliament's lower house. Two ruling party MPs have stepped aside to make way for him and by-elections are being held in their seats of Attock and Tharpakar on August 18.
Aziz had just finished campaigning in Attock just west of Islamabad late Friday when a suicide car bomber ploughed through a security cordon into his sedan, killing his driver and five other people.
The married father of three is considered the architect of Pakistan's recent economic overhaul.
During his tenure, reforms and the benefits of joining the US-led war on terror -- Pakistan trimmed its debts and collected new loans and aid grants as rewards -- combined to raise the country's economy out of a slump to the current growth rate of 6.4 percent.
Aziz was born and schooled in Pakistan's commercial capital Karachi, the southern port city on the Arabian Sea coast.
He graduated in business administration from Karachi University and joined Citibank in 1969 in Pakistan. After several international postings he eventually wound up with the bank in New York.
After 30 years in global finance and international banking, Musharraf plucked him from the private sector within weeks of his coup and made him finance minister in November 1999.
He was returned to the portfolio after the first post-coup elections in 2002 under Jamali's infant government. In the same year he was elected to the senate.
Analysts predicted that his lack of political ties would make him less prone to controversy than Jamali and embolden him to face up to powerful anti-Musharraf Islamic parties.
"Shaukat Aziz will be more stable than Jamali. He has no political background," analyst and columnist Ayaz Amir told AFP.
"He ... may not feel any need to discuss things with politicians. The US will like him and Musharraf will like him because he will accept whatever system is enforced in the country -- presidential or semi-presidential.
"However, it remains to be seen if Aziz will deliver what Jamali could not."