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04-03-2024
By SJA Jafri + Bureau Report + Agencies
ISLAMABAD: Pakistan’s newly formed parliament has elected Shehbaz Sharif as prime minister for a second term.
He defeated a rival supported by jailed former Prime Minister Imran Khan.
The move comes three weeks after an inconclusive general election that was marred by allegations of intimidation and vote-rigging.
Sharif’s PML-N party came second in the poll. Independent candidates backed by Khan’s PTI won the most seats but failed to get a majority.
On Sunday, National Assembly Speaker Ayaz Sadiq announced that Sharif had secured 201 parliamentary votes. He needed 169 to be elected prime minister.
His rival Omar Ayub, who was supported by Khan’s Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) party, won 92 votes.
In his victory speech, Sharif said that as no side had a clear parliamentary majority, it was “the democratic way” that “like-minded parties may form a coalition government”.
Following last month’s election, the Pakistan Muslim League Nawaz (PML-N) – headed by Nawaz Sharif, a former prime minister who is Shehbaz Sharif’s brother – reached a coalition deal with the Pakistan People’s Party (PPP).
In 2022 the two parties, which have traditionally been rivals, joined forces to oust Imran Khan as prime minister and install Sharif as his successor.
After the assembly was dissolved last August, Pakistan was led by a caretaker government.
Imran Khan was jailed in the run-up to the 6 February election and barred from standing.
He faces more than 150 criminal and civil charges, all of which he denies as the authorities launched a crackdown on his party.
PTI candidates were forced to run as independents but won more seats than any other party.
Meanwhile, Pakistanis still do not know which party will form their next government or who their next prime minister will be four days after the hotly-contested general elections.
Despite former PM Imran Khan’s detention and the many hurdles thrown at his Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI), independent candidates backed by the party stunned observers by winning 93 National Assembly seats, the most by any party. However it is far short of the 169-seat simple majority required to form a government.
