Former finance minister Shaukat Aziz has been elected as Pakistan's prime minister in a rubber-stamp parliamentary vote boycotted by the entire opposition. "I declare Mr Shaukat Aziz as the member who commands the majority of the house," speaker Chaudhry Amir Hussain announced on Friday after the lower-house vote, which was held up for an hour by opposition protests. All the 191 ruling party members voted for Aziz - an ally of President Pervez Musharraff - while opposition members boycotted the vote following Hussain's decision to not allow their own candidate, the jailed Javed Hashmi, to attend the session. Hashmi is serving a 23-year jail sentence for treason after a court convicted him in April over a letter he distributed, saying it was from army officers criticising President Musharraf. **Protests*** Opposition members carrying pictures of exiled former premiers, Benazir Bhutto and Nawaz Sharif, and wearing black arm bands, chanted slogans of "Shame, Shame," to protest against the decision. Chanting "Restore True Democracy", members of both Islamist and secular opposition parties trooped out of the hall when Hussain announced the start of voting. "This is a farce, a complete farce, we don't call it election," opposition MP Tehmina Daultana said. "We are extremely upset at this undemocratic behaviour," she said as opposition MPs gathered in the lobby. **PHOTO CAPTION*** Former finance minister Shaukat Aziz. (Al-Jazeera)