Shehbaz Sharif has been elected as the 23rd Prime Minister of Pakistan. He was elected unopposed after former premier Imran Khan’s prime ministerial candidate and former foreign minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi decided to boycott with his party members the National Assembly where the voting for the change of guard took place.

Sharif will take the oath at 8 PM Pakistan Standard Time on Monday. Following the boycott by the outgoing law makers, Sharif received 174 votes paving the way and legitimising his premiership.

میاں شہباز شریف @CMShehbaz pic.twitter.com/4cfpABhswV

— Syed Kousar Kazmi (@SyedKousarKazmi) April 11, 2022

Analysts say that Shehbaz may only bide time till his brother and former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif marks a triumphant return from exile in London, probably after Eid, to take the reins of governance in Pakistan.

Interestingly the deputy speaker Qasim Suri allowed Qureshi, the former foreign minister  to make a statement as he started the proceedings. Qureshi used the opportunity to praise Imran Khan who was shown the door in the wee hours on Sunday following the passage of a no-confidence motion marshalled by the combined opposition, led by Sharif but also Bilawal Bhutto’s Pakistan People’s Party (PPP), which has its stronghold in Sindh, among others.

Concluding his monologue, Qureshi announced that he and his party members will boycott proceedings. 

At this point, the deputy speaker  also “excused” himself  from conducting the proceedings. Suri had courted controversy earlier after he had refused to carry out the no-confidence proceeding on April 3, leading to the Supreme Court’s intervention for holding the vote that eventually removed Khan as premier.

Explaining the rationale behind his  ruling to dismiss the no-confidence motion against the former prime minister, Suri said that there was a foreign conspiracy to remove the PTI leader.  

Earlier, amid high tensions and cacophony during the day, Imran Khan had arrived in parliament–his first visit after losing the no-confidence vote on April 9 . He then told his party Assembly members to resign en masse from the National Assembly.

Khan then went into attack mode in a bid to tarnish Sharif’s image even before his anointment. He alleged that there were two mega corruption cases against PML-N chief Shehbaz Sharif and it would be the “biggest insult to the country” to elect him as the prime minister of Pakistan. Most of his party members opposed Khan's decision to tender resignations, and instead, advised that they should not leave the field empty and face the Opposition strongly on every front. At this, Khan said if none of the parliamentarians resigns, he "will be the first member to resign from the assembly.”

“I will not sit with the corrupt man (Shehbaz Sharif)” the “puritanical” Khan told the media while leaving the parliament, the mercurial leader said.

خان صاحب شدید غصے میں بولے کہ جو شہباز شریف کو وزیراعظم بنوا رہا ہے اس سے بڑی ملک کی توہین نہیں ہو سکتی اور وہ پارلیمنٹ سے روانہ ہوئے کہ ہم استعفے دے رہے ہیں pic.twitter.com/Jd48ygyfs2

— M Awais Kiyani (@awaiskiyani24) April 11, 2022

According to Geo TV , so far 10 members including a few former ministers of the previous cabinet have resigned from the assembly.

Also Read: Will Bilawal Bhutto be Pakistan’s new Foreign Minister?