New West-friendly Pakistan PM vows to tackle economic woes

ISLAMABAD • Pakistan's Parliament chose a more Western-friendly politician, Mr Shehbaz Sharif, as prime minister yesterday, completing the ouster of his predecessor Imran Khan in a political crisis that has sparked street protests and a mass resignation of lawmakers.

Mr Sharif's election brings to a close a week-long constitutional confrontation that climaxed on Sunday when Mr Khan lost a no-confidence vote, although the nuclear-armed nation is likely to remain prone to political and economic turbulence.

Mr Sharif, 70, who has a reputation domestically as an effective administrator more than as a politician, is the younger brother of three-time prime minister Nawaz Sharif.

Analysts say the new leader, unlike his older brother, enjoys amicable relations with Pakistan's military, which traditionally controls foreign and defence policy in the country of 220 million people.

After the vote, Mr Sharif vowed to tackle the economic malaise that has seen the Pakistani rupee hit an all-time low and the central bank's largest rate hike in decades last week.

"If we have to save the sinking boat, what we all need is hard work, and unity, unity and unity," he said in his maiden speech to Parliament. "We are beginning a new era of development today."

Just minutes before the vote, legislators from Mr Khan's party resigned en masse from the Lower House of Parliament in protest over the expected formation of a government by his political foes.

"We are announcing we are all resigning," Mr Shah Mahmood Qureshi, former foreign minister and vice-chairman of Mr Khan's party, told the assembly.

The mass resignations will require fresh by-elections for well over 100 seats.

Mr Khan's Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf party had submitted papers nominating Mr Qureshi as its candidate for prime minister.

The younger Mr Sharif emerged as the leader of a united opposition to topple Mr Khan, a former cricket star who has claimed that the United States was behind his downfall, which Washington has denied.

Mr Sharif said in an interview last week that good relations with the US were critical for Pakistan, for better or for worse, in stark contrast to Mr Khan's prickly ties with Washington.

His brother Nawaz was barred by the Supreme Court in 2017 from holding public office and subsequently went abroad for medical treatment after serving just a few months of a 10-year jail sentence for corruption charges.

"There can't be any bigger insult to this country," Mr Khan said after his ouster in the early hours of Sunday on the prospect of Mr Shehbaz Sharif being elected.

No elected prime minister has completed a full term in the nuclear-armed nation since it won independence from colonial power Britain in 1947, though Mr Khan is the first to be removed by a no-confidence vote.

The military has ruled the country for almost half its nearly 75-year history.

It viewed Mr Khan and his conservative agenda favourably when he won the election in 2018.

But that support waned after a falling out over the appointment of the military intelligence chief and economic woes that led to the interest rate rise last week.

Mr Khan remained defiant following his defeat in Parliament.

Thousands of his supporters in several cities held protests against his ouster that went on until the early hours yesterday.

REUTERS