Sign up now for FREE unlimited access to Reuters.com Register ISLAMABAD, April 10 (Reuters) – Sehbaz Sharif, the most likely person to be Pakistan’s next prime minister, is little known outside his homeland, but has a reputation at home as an effective administrator rather than a politician. The younger brother of three-time Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, Sehbaz, 70, led a successful opposition bid in parliament to overthrow Imran Khan in a no-confidence vote early Sunday, which Khan supporters have been pushing for hours. read more Analysts say Sehbaz, unlike Nawaz, has friendly relations with the Pakistani military, which has traditionally controlled the foreign and defense policy of the nation of 220 million people with nuclear weapons. read more Sign up now for FREE unlimited access to Reuters.com Register Pakistani generals intervened immediately to overthrow political governments three times, and no prime minister has completed a full five-year term since the independence of the South Asian state from Britain in 1947. The ousting of Khan was an opportunity to become a new star, Shehbaz, the common opposition candidate to replace Khan, told parliament shortly after the vote. “A new dawn has begun … this alliance will rebuild Pakistan,” he said. Sehbaz, part of the wealthy Sharif dynasty, is best known for his direct “can-do” style of administration, which emerged when, as chief minister of Punjab province, he worked closely with China on Beijing-funded projects. He also said in an interview last week that good relations with the United States were crucial for Pakistan, for better or for worse, in stark contrast to Hahn’s recent rivalry with Washington. read more There are still several procedural steps before Sharif can become the 23rd Prime Minister of Pakistan, not including the caretaker governments, although the opposition has consistently identified him as its sole candidate. If he takes on the role, he faces immediate challenges, including Pakistan’s collapsing economy, which has been hit by high inflation, local currency depreciation and rapidly depreciating foreign exchange reserves. Analysts also say Sharif will not act with complete independence, as he will have to work on a collective agenda with the other opposition parties and his brother. Nawaz has lived in London for the past two years since being released from prison, where he was serving a sentence for corruption and medical treatment. “PUNJAB SPEED” As chief minister of Punjab, Pakistan’s most populous province, Sehbaz Sharif has designed and executed a number of ambitious major infrastructure projects, including Pakistan’s first modern public transportation system in his hometown of Lahore, east of Lahore. According to local media, the outgoing Chinese Consul General wrote to Sharif last year praising the “Punjab Speed” that carried out the projects under the huge China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) initiative. The diplomat also said Sharif and his party would be friends of China in government or in opposition. As for Afghanistan, Islamabad is under international pressure to push the Taliban to meet their human rights commitments as they try to reduce instability there. Unlike Khan, who regularly denounces Indian nationalist Prime Minister Narendra Modi, the Sharif political dynasty has been more ruthless with its nuclear-armed neighbor, with which Pakistan has waged three wars. As for his relationship with the powerful army, Sharif has long played the public “good cop” in Nawaz’s “bad cop” – the latter had several public disputes with the army. Sehbaz was born in Lahore to a wealthy industrial family and studied locally. He then joined the family business and jointly owns a Pakistani steel company. He entered politics in Punjab, and became prime minister for the first time in 1997, before being trapped in national political unrest and imprisoned following a military coup. He was then deported to Saudi Arabia in 2000. Sehbaz returned from exile in 2007 to resume his political career, again in Punjab. He entered the national political scene when he became the leader of the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) party after Nawaz was found guilty in 2017 of hiding assets related to the Panama Papers revelations. The Sharif family and their supporters say the cases were politically motivated. Both brothers have faced numerous corruption cases at the National Accountability Office, including Khan’s prime minister, but Sehbaz has not been found guilty of any charges. Sign up now for FREE unlimited access to Reuters.com Register Report by Syed Raza Hassan and Gibran Peshimam. Editing by William Mallard, Mike Collett-White and Sanjeev Miglani Our role models: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.
