Pakistan’s parliament chose Shehbaz Sharif as the country’s new prime minister on Monday, after a week of crisis that, on Sunday, culminated in the defeat of Imran Khan in a vote of no confidence.
Shehbaz, 70, whose domestic reputation is for being an effective administrator rather than a politician, is the younger brother of Nawaz Sharif, who served as Pakistan’s prime minister three times.
Analysts say that Shehbaz, unlike Nawaz, has friendly relations with the country’s armed forces. Traditionally, the military controls foreign affairs and, of course, defense policies in a nuclear-armed nation with a population of over 220 million people.
In 2017, Nawaz was barred by the Supreme Court from holding public office and then left the country for medical treatment after serving months of a ten-year prison sentence for corruption allegations.
Shehbaz has emerged as the leader of a united opposition to oust Khan, a former cricket star for whom the United States is behind his downfall, which Washington denies. Minutes before the vote that elected the new premier, lawmakers from Khan’s party resigned en masse from the lower house of parliament in protest at the expectation of a new government by their political rivals.
Mass exits will require new by-elections in more than 100 seats.
“We are announcing our resignation,” Shah Mahmood Qureshi, former chancellor and vice president of the Pakistan Justice Movement, the party of the now former prime minister, said in a speech at the Assembly. The caption had sent documents naming Qureshi as its prime candidate.
Khan, in turn, said this Monday “there is no greater insult” than having Shehbaz as the country’s new leader. No elected prime minister has completed his term since Pakistan gained independence in 1947, although Khan was the first to be removed by a vote of no confidence.
The military, which has ruled the country for nearly half of Pakistan’s nearly 75-year history, welcomed the former prime minister and his conservative agenda when he came to power in 2018.
But that support has waned after a disagreement over the appointment of the military intelligence chief and economic troubles, which last week led to the biggest interest rate hike in decades.
So an alliance of parties filed suit against Khan in mid-March, saying he had lost his parliamentary majority after more than a dozen defections from his party, raising the risk of turmoil in the country. The opposition also accuses Khan of mismanaging the economy and foreign policy — his popularity was low after three straight years of double-digit inflation.
The former prime minister, who maintained a defiant tone after his defeat in parliament, saw thousands of supporters in several cities protest until the early hours of Monday against his ouster.
