The first words he spoke as leader of the House signaled a complete and welcome break from vindictive politics as compared to the previous civil governments. He told the National Assembly that he will neither malign nor harass his political opponents by framing false cases against them or opening their dossiers as was the norm in the past. He believed in politics of dialogue and consultation and would endeavour to secure the cooperation of all parties in tackling national issues both in the domestic and external fields.

From fractious politics to consensus politics and from maligning the opposition to showing accommodation for its views is therefore going to be the hall-mark of the Jamali-led Government - a sea- change that will usher in national polity at peace with itself and free to concentrate all its resources of thought and action in national development and progress.
Mir Zafarullah Khan pledged to continue the fiscal and foreign policies of the past three years which, he said, had best served the interests of Pakistan. He made it clear that he fully shared the thinking and approach of the President in these matters. For both Pakistan came first and its interest in their eyes was supreme.Mir Sahib is no stranger to politics or the working of Government. His uncle, Mir Jafar Khan Jamali was one of the stalwarts of the Pakistan movement and a very close associate of the Quaid-i-Azam Muhammad Ali Jinnah. Together with Nawab Mohammad Khan Jogezai, who was Chief of the Balochistan Shahi Jirga, he played a pivotal role in the decision of the Jirga to join Pakistan.

The present generation is mostly unaware of the critical importance of the Jirga's decision because a negative vote could have crippled Pakistan at its birth. Both the Frontier Province and Sylhet in Assam, on the eve of independence, decided to join Pakistan through referendum, while Balochistan's fate, still lacking the status of a province, lay in the hands of tribal elders, who constituted the Shahi Jirga.

The Jamali tribe's faithfulness to Pakistan, both during the freedom struggle and after, has been exemplary from amongst the Baloch people, whose population is spread over three provinces, namely, Balochistan, Sindh and Punjab. Mir Zafarullah's credentials as a true Pakistani are therefore impeccable.

He made his debut in politics in 1977, when the people of his area elected him as a member of the Balochistan Provincial Assembly, after which he was taken as the Minister for Food, Information and Parliamentary Affairs in the provincial cabinet Subsequently, he twice led the Provincial Cabinet as Chief Minister, once as an elected Chief Minister and a second time as a caretaker.

From 1981 to 1984, he worked as Minister of State in the Federal Cabinet for Food, Agriculture and Cooperatives. Thereafter, he was given the portfolio of Federal Minister for Local Government and Rural Development. He served as Minister for Water and Power in 1985-86 and as Railways Minister in 1988.

He was elected member of the National Assembly in 1985 & 1993, and a Senator in 1997. Early this year (2002), he was elected Secretary General of the Pakistan Muslim League (Quaid-i-Azam), the office he has recently left. Mir Zafarullah son of Haji Shah Nawaz Khan Jamali, did his Masters in History from the Punjab University in 1965. He graduated from Government College, Lahore, in 1963, with distinction, earning Role of Honour. He did his A-Level from Aitchison College, Lahore, the Secondary School O-Level from Lawrence College, Ghora Gali, Murree, and his Junior Cambridge from Grammar School, Quetta. He completed his primary education in his ancestral village in Rojhan Jamali, district Jaffarabad.

He is a multi linguist, quite at ease with English, Urdu, Balochi (his mother tongue), Sindhi, Punjabi and Seraiki. This enables him to communicate and establish rapport with facility with all language groups in the country.

His love of sports has made no mean contribution to his well-rounded personality. His main passion is hockey though he has also played tennis and football. He was 'Blue' holder of Punjab University in hockey in 1961-65 and also captained its team. He represented Pakistan as a hockey player at international level. He was Chief-de-Mission of the Pakistan Olympic contingent to the Los Angeles games in 1984, where the Pakistan Hockey team won the Gold Medal. For almost two decades, he has been the Chief Selector of the Pakistan Hockey team.

From his love of sports, he has imbibed a spirit of sportsmanship which has proved a great asset to him in his successful political career. It has given him tolerance and poise.

He has widely travelled abroad visiting Europe, USA, Australia, Africa, Far East and the Middle East. He represented Pakistan at 1980 and 1991 sessions of the United Nations. In 1981, he led the Pakistan delegation to the FAO Conference at Rome and the same year to the Islamic Agricultural Ministers Conference in Ankara. In March 1984, he headed another Pakistan delegation to the FAO Conference for the Near East region at Aden. In 1982, he led a 21-member delegation of Majlis-e-Shura on a two-week goodwill mission to the United States.

He is a happy family man. His two sons are in the Pakistan Army. The eldest one was elected to the National Assembly in 1997. He has performed Hajj pilgrimage four times.

It is a tribute to his acceptable personality that even the main Opposition, while sticking to its own political agenda, has pledged publicly not to destabilize his Government so that the democratic dispensation takes firm roots. This again represents a sea-change in the political culture of Pakistan because its political history is replete with the recurring phenomenon of the Opposition going all-out from the moment a government assumed office to destabilize it.

Mir Sahib says he has no illusions about power as a constant factor. But he is determined to serve his stint as Prime Minister with humility and decency. To him decency is not weakness but nobility. He has vowed to give respect to all and hopes he will get the same from them. His watchword is: hasten slowly and things will settle down and fall in their place as desired by the people.