Lahore/Islamabad. Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) President Shahbaz Sharif, who is considered a prime ministerial candidate after Imran Khan was ousted from power, is a staunch realist and over the years he has become an outspoken person. Has earned the reputation of being Shahbaz, the 70-year-old younger brother of three-time former prime minister Nawaz Sharif, has been three-time chief minister of the country’s most populous and politically important Punjab province. This is the first time that his party, the PML-N – especially its supremo Nawaz Sharif – has agreed to his name for the post of prime minister.
Former President and Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) co-chair Asif Ali Zardari had proposed Shahbaz’s name for the post of Prime Minister in a joint opposition meeting. It is noteworthy that late Saturday night, Imran Khan was removed from the post of Prime Minister through a no-confidence motion in the National Assembly, the lower house of Parliament. Born in September 1951 in Lahore to a Punjabi-speaking Kashmiri family, Shahbaz entered politics with his elder brother Nawaz in the mid-1980s. He was first elected a member of the Punjab Legislative Assembly in 1988 when Nawaz became the Chief Minister of Punjab.
Shahbaz first became the Chief Minister of Punjab in 1997 when his brother was the Prime Minister at the Centre. In 1999, General Pervez Musharraf sacked Nawaz Sharif in a coup. After this, Shahbaz lived with his family in exile in Saudi Arabia for eight years and returned to his homeland in 2007. He became the Chief Minister of Punjab for the second time in 2008 and for the third time in 2013. Shahbaz has claimed that General Musharraf had offered him the prime minister’s post with a condition that he leave his elder brother Nawaz, but he flatly refused it.
After Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif was disqualified from office in 2017 in the Panama Papers case, the PML-N appointed Shahbaz as party president. Thereafter, he became the Leader of the Opposition in the National Assembly after the 2018 elections. In September 2020, Shahbaz was arrested by the anti-corruption body – National Accountability Bureau – on money laundering and disproportionate income charges leveled by Imran Khan’s government.
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Shahbaz denied the charges and remained in jail for several months. Later he got bail. He is currently facing a 14 billion Pakistani Rupee money laundering case brought against him by the Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) of Pakistan in the UK. He is also out on bail in this case.
Nawaz’s daughter and PML-N vice-president Maryam Nawaz, who is Shehbaz’s niece, has said that her uncle is a man who has served the country selflessly and tirelessly. Although Nawaz Sharif is said to want his daughter Maryam to become prime minister, he has been convicted in the Avenfield corruption case. So Nawaz had no option but to nominate Shahbaz from his party for the top executive post. When three-time prime minister Nawaz Sharif was sacked by the apex court in 2017, he preferred party leader Shahid Khaqan Abbasi over his younger brother Shahbaz for the remaining 10-month term as prime minister.
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According to experts, Shahbaz has cordial relations with the mighty army. The military has ruled the country for more than half of Pakistan’s 75-year history, and the military still exercises considerable influence in matters of security and foreign policy. Shahbaz’s father Muhammad Sharif was an industrialist who had come from Anantnag in Kashmir for business and settled in Jatti Umra village in Punjab’s Amritsar district in the early 20th century. His mother’s family had come from Pulwama. After partition, Shahbaz’s family moved from Amritsar to Lahore where they named their home ‘Jatti Umra’ (located in Raiwind on the outskirts of Lahore). He graduated from Government College University, Lahore. Shahbaz did five marriages.
He currently has two wives – Nusrat and Tehmina Durrani – while he divorced three others – Aaliya Hani, Nilofar Khoja and Kulsoom. He has two sons and three daughters from Nusrat and one daughter from Alia. His elder son Hamza Shahbaz is the Leader of the Opposition in the Punjab Legislative Assembly.
Hamza is also contesting for the chief minister’s post against Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf coalition candidate Pervez Elahi. His younger son Suleman Shahbaz looks after the family business. He is absconding on money laundering and disproportionate income case and is in the UK for the last few years. (agency)