New Pak PM Shehbaz Sharif: ‘Twice-lucky’ able administrator who faces a tall order

After a tumultuous 16 months until August last year when he held together a motley group of allies, Shehbaz Sharif, 72, will be back at the top post after voters came up with a massively splintered verdict.

Divided verdict

While the Sharif brothers’ Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) ended up as the single largest party, it was outnumbered by Independents who won with the backing of their bitter rival, former prime minister Imran Khan’s Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI).

Before he became the prime minister in April 2022, the PML-N buried its longstanding differences with Pakistan’s powerful military because the army had decided to dump its former favourite, Imran Khan, who was voted out in parliament in 2022 and was arrested last year.

Ex-Punjab CM

At that time, Shehbaz Sharif got the top job because Nawaz Sharif was in self-imposed exile in London and disqualified from holding public office after being linked to the Panama Papers.

Before being catapulted to the post of prime minister, the younger Sharif was known as a good administrator, having been thrice the chief minister of Punjab, the country’s most important province.

Political acumen

As prime minister, Shehbaz Sharif showed his political acumen by becoming the glue that held together a coalition of disparate political parties that were at odds with one another and only united in their opposition to Imran Khan.

That challenge will persist as Shehbaz Sharif begins to govern Pakistan, which is not only in the thick of a major economic crisis but has become more divided following the February 8 elections which critics say was rigged by an establishment biased against the resurrection of the PTI and Imran Khan.

Lucky again

This time, too, Shehbaz Sharif will be the prime minister due to a quirk of fate. Had the PML-N won a majority of its own, Nawaz Sharif, who has been thrice prime minister, would have grabbed the job.

The PML-N won only 80 seats in the 264-seat National Assembly and will be taking office with the help of other parties, including the Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) which, however, has refused to join the government.

Major challenges

Shehbaz Sharif, who secured a last-gasp International Monetary Fund (IMF) deal last year, has a major task of putting Pakistan’s economy on sound rails and healing the wounds triggered by allegations of electoral fraud.

Under his government, inflation touched a new high, rendering many items of day-to-day life beyond the reach of the common man. The Pakistani rupee has depreciated steeply due to structural reforms necessitated by the IMF programme.

Wealthy family

The younger Sharif has blamed the economic meltdown on Imran Khan's ousted government, which he says broke an agreement with IMF just before he was ousted. But he won’t be able to keep on blaming Imran Khan for all time to come.

Born in Lahore into a wealthy Kashmiri-origin family that was in the steel business, Shehbaz Sharif embraced politics as the Punjab chief minister in 1997 with a “can-do” administrative style.

Developing Punjab

Ministers and bureaucrats who have worked with him call him a workaholic.

As chief minister, he planned and executed a number of ambitious infrastructure mega-projects, including Pakistan's first modern mass transport system in Lahore.

Twice married

Shehbaz Sharif entered the national political scene when he came to head the PML-N after Nawaz Sharif was found guilty in 2017 on charges of concealing assets related to the Panama Papers revelations.

Married twice, Shehbaz Sharif has two sons and two daughters from his first marriage but none from the second. One of the sons is in politics but the others are not in public life.