Pakistan’s parliament votes in Sharif as prime minister

Pakistan’s parliament on Monday elected Shehbaz Sharif prime minister after a week-long constitutional crisis that climaxed on Sunday when his predecessor Imran Khan lost a no-confidence vote.

Shehbaz, 70, who has a reputation domestically as an effective administrator more than as a politician, is the younger brother of three-time prime minister Nawaz Sharif.

Analysts say Shehbaz, unlike Nawaz, enjoys amicable relations with Pakistan’s military, which traditionally controls foreign and defence policy in the nuclear-armed nation of 220 million people

The younger Sharif emerged as the leader of a united opposition to topple Khan, a former cricket star who has claimed that the United States was behind his downfall, which Washington has denied.

Nawaz Sharif was barred by the Supreme Court in 2017 from holding public office and subsequently went abroad for medical treatment after serving just a few months of a 10-year jail sentence for corruption charges.

Just minutes before the vote, legislators from Khan’s party resigned en masse from the lower house of parliament in protest at the expected formation of a government by his political opponents.

via Reuters