ISLAMABAD – Shehbaz Sharif was elected 24th prime minister of Pakistan on Sunday amid widespread allegations of massive vote rigging in the general elections of February 8.
In the election for prime minister’s office, Sharif obtained 201 votes, while his rival candidate, Omar Ayub Khan from the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) backed Sunni Ittehad Council (SIC) got 92 votes.
Pakistan’s National Assembly, the lower house of the parliament that elects the prime minister of the country, has a total strength of 336, but 305 lawmakers have taken oath so far.
Eight lawmakers of Maulana Fazlur Rehman’s JUI-F skipped the National Assembly session, which was convened to elect the prime minister. BNP-M President Akhtar Mengal, who chose to sit on the opposition benches, did not cast his vote despite a request from PTI-backed Amir Dogar, who is the chief whip of the opposition party.
The fourth session of the new National Assembly was no different than the previous ones as pandemonium prevailed during proceedings, particularly due to noisy protests by PTI-backed lawmakers against alleged rigging in the Feb 8 elections.
At one point, there was a fear of a physical confrontation between PML-N and PTI-SIC lawmakers who surrounded the speaker’s chair. PTI leader Sher Afzal Marwat got into a heated argument with the opponents, forcing the speaker to intervene and prevent the altercation from escalating.
Since no political party won a clear majority in the February 8 general elections, Sharif has been elected the prime minister of Pakistan after days of negotiations among the coalition partners – Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N), Pakistan People’s Party (PPP), Muttahida Qaumi Movement-Pakistan (MQM-P), Istehkam-e-Pakistan Party (IPP) and Pakistan Muslim League-Quaid (PML-Q).
During and after Sharif’s election as prime minister of Pakistan for the second term, former prime minister Imran Khan’s PTI strongly protested the alleged vote rigging in the February 8 general elections. Khan, his party leadership and his diehard supporters have been facing a ruthless crackdown since May 9, 2023, the day when Khan’s supporters staged violent protests against his arrest and carried out arson attacks on state installations.
Since then dozens of PTI leaders were arrested, allegedly subjected to torture by the state institutions and then forced to quit Khan’s party. The PTI claims that currently its 10,000 leaders and supporters are rotting in different jails across the country and the only reason for these illegal arrests and detentions is these people’s decision to support Imran Khan.