Shahid Khaqan Abbasi elected new Pakistan PM

Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz’s (PML-N) Shahid Khaqan Abbasi, the former petroleum minister, has been elected as the country’s new prime minister.

He secured 221 votes against Pakistan Peoples’ party’s Naveed Qamar’s 47 and Sheikh Rashid’s 33. Jamaat-e-Islami’s Sahibzada Tariqullah managed to secure only four votes.

“I am grateful to the members, the masses, and Nawaz Sharif, the prime minister of the masses,” Abbasi said after being elected.

His election came three days after former premier Nawaz Sharif was disqualified and made ineligible to hold public office by the Supreme Court for hiding assets in his nomination papers for the 2013 general elections.

Qamar was contesting from the Pakistan People’s Party, Awami Muslim League leader Rashid was the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf’s candidate, also backed by the Pakistan Muslim League-Quaid. The Muttahida Qaumi Movement, following a meeting with the PML-N leadership, had pulled out its candidate, Kishwar Zehra, and announced that it would support Abbasi.

The Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam-Fazl, being an ally of the ruling party, was supporting the PML-N candidate, whereas the Awami National Party abstained from the election process on account of the opposition’s lack of consensus.

Essa Noori, the lone MNA from Balochistan National Party-Mengal, also did not cast his vote.

Abbasi will remain the PM until Punjab Chief Minister Shehbaz Sharif runs for NA-120, Lahore, the seat left vacant after Nawaz’s disqualification, and then take over as the new ‘permanent’ premier until the 2018 polls.