Pakistan Muslim League – Nawaz (PML-N) President Shehbaz Sharif ostensibly seems to be in a leading position to become the next prime minister of Pakistan after Imran Khan was voted out from the office on Sunday.
If things go in his favour tomorrow, the frontrunner will be the 23rd prime minister of Pakistan.
Before Imran Khan was voted out of the office through a no-confidence motion, Shehbaz was serving as the Leader of the Opposition in the National Assembly (NA) since August 2018.
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He embarked on his political journey in 1988 when he was elected to the Punjab assembly on the ticket of Islami Jamhoori Ittehad (JI) and then paved his way to the provincial assembly again in the 1990 general elections which were happening after the assemblies were dissolved.
Then in 1993 early-elections following the dissolution of assemblies in the same year, Shehbaz was elected to the provincial assembly again but on the ticket of PML-N, the party he leads today, and served as the opposition leader. The assemblies were dissolved in 1996 before completion of term.
In 1997, he won in the general election again and became the chief minister of the province for the first time. However, the military junta took over the country in 1999.
He was sent into exile in Saudi Arabia with his brother Nawaz Sharif and other family members in 2000.
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He returned to Pakistan in 2007 and went on to become the only politician in Pakistan’s history who has served in the plum position of Punjab’s chief minister thrice.
Shehbaz became the chief minister of Punjab after his party’s victory in the province in the 2008 elections. He was re-elected as Punjab’s chief minister in 2013 as his party maintained the winning streak.
The three-time chief minister of Punjab holds a reputation of being an enthusiastic administrator with expeditive approach.
During his rule in the most populous province, Shehbaz Sharif stayed tilted toward mega-infrastructure projects including the Metro Bus Service in urban centres.
Besides this, National Accountability Bureau (NAB), the anti-graft watchdog, had arrested him in September 2020 on charges of money laundering. However, Lahore High Court (LHC) granted him bail in April 2021.
