Shahid Khaqan Abbasi was elected after getting 221 votes in the House of 342. Naveed Qamar of the Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) got 47 votes.
KARACHI – Pakistan’s Parliament elected former petroleum minister Shahid Khaqan Abbasi as prime minister on Tuesday, days after three-time premier Nawaz Sharif was ousted by the Supreme Court.
Abbasi, from the ruling PML-N party, got 221 votes in the 342-member National Assembly or lower house of Parliament, Speaker Sardar Ayaz Sadiq announced. He will be sworn in later on Tuesday.
After announcing the results amid sloganeering, Sadiq asked Abbasi to take the seat of the prime minister and address the House.
The voting was done with four corners being designated for four candidates, where supporters of each candidate recorded their vote.
Abbasi, a leading businessman and founder of the airblue private airline, will serve as a placeholder prime minister till Sharif’s brother, Punjab chief minister Shehbaz Sharif, is elected to the National Assembly and can become the premier.
After the voting and counting process, many PML-N members of the National Assembly entered the House with posters of Sharif. The Speaker objected to this and asked them to put away placards and posters.
Abbasi will be sworn-in in later at a special ceremony at the President’s House, where President Mamnoon Hussain will administer the oath to him.
Sharif resigned on Friday, shortly after the Supreme Court ruled he was not honest because he had concealed assets — specifically a monthly salary owed to him by his son’s Dubai-based company. Sharif has said he never received any of that money.
The PML-N party has said it will file a petition in the Supreme Court next week, seeking a review of its verdict.
