Following the recent removal of former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif from office by the Supreme Court, the country’s lawmakers on Tuesday elected long-term aide of the ousted prime minister the new premier.
“Shahid Khaqan Abbasi, a 58-year-old engineering graduate from a U.S. university, secured 221 votes against 47 for his nearest rival,’’ the Speaker of the National Assembly Speaker Ayaz Sadiq, has announced.
Abbasi’s election is for an interim period of 45 days, after which Sharif’s younger brother, Shahbaz Sharif, was expected to take over.
The Supreme Court removed Sharif from office on Friday on corruption allegations against him and his family.
The charges were linked to one of two of his stints in power in the 1990s and were revealed in last year’s so-called Panama Papers leak.
The younger Sharif, currently the chief minister of the central province of Punjab, is eligible for Pakistan’s top job if he resigns from his current post and wins a seat in the National Assembly.