ORIGINAL ARTICLE: Shehbaz Sharif becomes Pakistan’s Prime Minister for 2nd Time
Shehbaz Sharif has won a second term as Pakistan’s Prime Minister following an election that was riddled with allegations of rigging and irregularities.
Sharif, of the PML-N party, was the nominated candidate of a new eight-party coalition that was formed after no single party managed to win an outright majority in the election on February 8, 2024.
At the gathering of the newly elected national assembly, Sharif won 201 votes against Omer Ayub, the candidate of PTI, the party of the former prime minister Imran Khan, which will now form the opposition in parliament.
Sharif is the younger brother of the three-time former prime minister Nawaz Sharif and has served as prime minister once before, from April 2022 until August 2023, after Khan was removed from power.
In his victory speech, Sharif thanked his older brother, claiming he “was the one who built Pakistan”.
His selection as prime minister came after weeks of wrangling and political horse-trading following the contentious February election.
PTI had defied a severe crackdown to win the most seats in the election but it was not enough to form an outright majority.
In the days after, PML-N began negotiations with the Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) and other smaller parties to form an alliance that would be enough to form a majority government and keep PTI out of power.
An agreement was eventually reached that Sharif would serve as prime minister while the PPP co-chair Asif Ali Zardari would be president.
Other smaller parties that joined the coalition will be given cabinet posts.
Khan and PTI-affiliated candidates have alleged there was rampant rigging in the election and that dozens of seats they won were stolen and given to PML-N and other parties.
They have challenged many of the cases with the election commission and in the courts.
A senior election official publicly said he had been pressed into changing the votes given to PTI-affiliated candidates, though he later retracted his statement after being arrested.
Gohar Khan, who is leading the PTI while Khan is in jail, said the party would not boycott the proceedings and instead use its presence as the opposition to protest against what it described as “mandate theft”.
Khan’s allies called Shehbaz Sharif a “vote thief” and shouted “shame”.
In response, Sharif said: “Let us sit together to work for the betterment of Pakistan.”
But his words were met by more shouting.
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