Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) leader Shehbaz Sharif was elected the prime minister of Pakistan on Sunday, He secured 201 votes after the polling process ended in the newly-elected National Assembly.

Sunni Ittehad Council’s candidate Omar Ayub Khan secured 92 votes.

This is Sharif’s second consecutive term in the Prime Minister’s Office. He was selected as the PM after former prime minister Imran Khan was ousted through a no-confidence vote in 2022. He managed a 13-party coalition during his 16 months in power.

He was elected with the support of a coalition including the Pakistan Peoples Party, which said it would support him but not be part of the government.

The Assembly session began at noon, after a delay of almost an hour. Voting was carried out through division.

Victory speech

In his victory speech, he thanked the allied parties for voting him to the PM Office as PTI-backed lawmakers chanted slogans of ‘chor’. Members from PMLN chanted their own slogans back at them.

Sharif also thanked his elder brother Nawaz Sharif for nominating him for the post. He called Nawaz the ‘maimaar’ (builder) of Pakistan, referring to his multiple stints in power.

Recalling the May 9 riots, the newly-elected PM said that the PML-N and PPP never attacked institutions despite their leadership being persecuted and jailed in several cases in the past. He added that martyrs had been disrespected in the riots and immense grief had been caused to their families.

On the country’s economic challenges, Sharif said that the government faces a whopping Rs700 billion deficit as out of the Rs12,300 billion generated by the country, Rs7,300 billion is given to the provinces while the services charges are worth up to Rs8,000 billion.

He said that the development, health, and education sectors are being paid through loans.

“All this is being afforded via loans throughout the years. This is the biggest challenge faced by the country today,” he added.

Shehbaz also said that his party had wiped out terrorism from the country but the previous government had not only allowed it to come back but had also released some highly-wanted terrorists. He added that the coalition parties have agreed that terrorism will have to end in the country.

He also called on the PTI to drop the politics of agitation and said that they should sit together to discuss election reforms.

Shehbaz also called on the opposition to sit with him for a charter of economy.

Shehbaz’s candidacy

Shehbaz, who is the president of the Pakistan Muslim League Nawaz, has the support of the Pakistan Peoples Party, Muttahida Qaumi Movement, Pakistan Muslim League-Quaid and Istehkam-e-Pakistan Party.

His name was put forward by the party alliance as part of a power-sharing formula concluded between the PMLN and PPP after the elections.

Independents, including those backed by the PTI, had emerged as the largest group in the NA with 101 seats in the general elections. They were followed by PMLN with 75 seats and PPP with 54 seats.

Most PTI candidates that were elected to the house have chosen to join the SIC in an attempt to be recognised as a party in the Assembly. The party hopes it can receive reserved seats through this strategy.

How will PM be elected?

The voting for the prime minister is not carried out through a secret ballot like it is for a speaker or deputy speaker.

Instead, the election takes place through an open division of members in the house.

The entire process is laid out in Chapter IV and Second Schedule of Rules and Procedure for the Conduct of Business in the National Assembly 2007.

The speaker will first order bells to be rung for five minutes to announce that the election is about to take place. This is done to allow any members not inside the hall to make their way back.

A different lobby will be allocated for voters of each candidate to gather in. A teller will be posted at the entrance to each lobby, who will record the names and division numbers of the members. The tellers will mark them on their division list.

After the speaker announces that the voting is completed, the lists from all tellers will be collected for final counting.

After this, the bells will be rung again to allow the members to come back into the Assembly, after which the results will be announced.