Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz leader Shehbaz Sharif was elected as Pakistan’s prime minister on Sunday for the second time after a controversial general election last month that was marred by allegations of poll rigging, reported Al Jazeera.
Sharif, who served as Pakistan’s prime minister from April 2022 to August 2023 before the country’s Parliament was dissolved to hold general elections, will take the oath of office on Monday.
The Pakistan Peoples Party led by Bilawal Bhutto Zardari and the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz had agreed on February 21 to form a coalition government led by Sharif, who is the younger brother of Nawaz Sharif, Pakistan’s former three-time prime minister.
Shehbaz Sharif received 201 votes in the 336-member National Assembly on Sunday. He needed at least 169 votes to win. Shehbaz Sharif’s opponent, Omar Ayub Khan, representing jailed former Prime Minister Imran Khan’s Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf party, secured 92 votes.
“When [Nawaz Sharif] was elected the prime minister thrice, the development that followed in the country is an example of its own,” Shehbaz Sharif said in a speech after his victory in the National Assembly, reported PTI. “It is not wrong to say that Nawaz Sharif is the one who built Pakistan.”
The new session of Pakistan’s Parliament on Sunday began amid sloganeering by legislators affiliated with the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf, which has claimed that it won 180 seats instead of the 93 seats shown in the official tally by the country’s Election Commission.
Pakistan’s National Assembly has 336 seats, of which 266 are decided by direct voting and 70 are reserved seats. The Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz had won 79 seats and the Pakistan Peoples Party 54 seats in last month’s general election. The Muttahida Qaumi Movement Pakistan, with 17 seats, also joined the Sharif-Bhutto Zardari coalition along with three other smaller parties.
The Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf was forced to field its candidates as independents after the country’s Supreme Court blocked the party from using its electoral symbol. Khan, the party’s chief, is in jail after being convicted in multiple legal cases.
“Manufacturing a hung Parliament through extensive manipulation and electoral fraud, in order to impose a failed coalition against the will of the people of Pakistan will not change reality: the people’s choice is Imran Khan,” the party said on February 21.
On February 17, a bureaucrat had also alleged that the country’s chief election commissioner and the chief justice were involved in rigging the election.
“I should be punished for the injustice I have done and others who were involved in this injustice should also be punished,” Rawalpindi Commissioner Liaquat Ali Chattha said, claiming that losing candidates “were made to win” the election. He later resigned from the post.
The Election Commission of Pakistan has formed a high-level committee to investigate the allegations.
Also read:
Pakistan’s military establishment may have won the battle, but it is losing the war.
Limited-time offer: Big stories, small price. Keep independent media alive. Become a Scroll member today!
Our journalism is for everyone. But you can get special privileges by buying an annual Scroll Membership. Sign up today!