Zubair Qureshi Islamabad
President of the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N), former Prime Minister and joint candidate of the PML-N, the PPP and the allies, Mian Muhammad Shehbaz Sharif was elected Prime Minister once again on Sunday as the majority (201) of the Members of the National Assembly (MNAs) reposed trust in his leadership as the 24th premier of the country.
His rival candidate, the PTI-backed Omar Ayub Khan of the Sunni Ittehdad Council (SIC) received 92 votes.
While addressing the House after his election, Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif promised to put the economy of the country back on the right path and steer the ship of the nation’s destiny off troubled waters.
PM-elect Shehbaz Sharif said the task was though gigantic but possible and he would do it with the help of the allies.
There are talented people including journalists, intellectuals, politicians, religious leaders sitting in this Parliament and they can steer Pakistan’s ship to the shore , Shehbaz added.
After his election to the second tenure in the top office, PM-elect Shehbaz Sharif said the big challenges lay ahead in Pakistan’s path but they could be overcome “provided we work together and decide to change the country’s fate” by taking it to its rightful position.”
Earlier, as the National Assembly Speaker Sardar Ayaz Sadiq announced the results Shehbaz’ elder brother and three-time former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif hugged his younger brother and congratulated him on his election.
It is Nawaz Sharif who was first the top choice for the PM slot but following the Feb 8 elections he stepped aside in favour of his sibling.
In his first speech on the floor of the newly elected house as the PM-elect, Shehbaz thanked his brother and allied parties for posing their trust in him by electing him as the leader of the house again.
During his speech, the PTI-backed lawmakers from the SIC chanted slogans from the opposition benches, shouting “thieves.” Shehbaz asserted that PML-N and coalition parties would play their role as “Pakistanis, Muslims, and human beings” to steer the country out of the crisis it currently faces even though the “job is difficult but not impossible”.
“When my leader (Nawaz) was elected the prime minister thrice, the course of development he initiated was exemplary and unheard of. It is not wrong to say that Nawaz Sharif is the one who constructed Pakistan,” Shehbaz said.
The PM-elect also eulogized PPP’s founding leader Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto, who was hanged in the past, saying the nation would always “remember his sacrifices.” Shehbaz said his party could never even think of bringing any harm to the country, unlike his opponents. “In the past, when the present opposition was in power and we were in opposition they put the entire opposition behind bars with little care about women or children. Even the language they used cannot be uttered out loud,” he said on the floor of the National Assembly.
“This is the difference between this leadership and that leadership and the entire assembly is witness to the fact that we never thought of the politics of revenge.
