By Staff Reporter
ISLAMABAD: After a week of intense negotiations, two of Pakistan’s major parties announced on Tuesday that they had reached a power-sharing deal to form the next government, ending days of political uncertainty in the nuclear-armed country.
The Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) and the Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) said they had secured enough seats in the lower house of parliament, the National Assembly, to elect PML-N’s Shehbaz Sharif as the new prime minister.
They would also back former president Asif Ali Zardari as their joint candidate for the largely ceremonial post of president.
The PPP, led by Bilawal Bhutto-Zardari, a former foreign minister and the son of slain former prime minister Benazir Bhutto, and the PML-N, headed by Nawaz Sharif, a three-time former prime minister, together won 129 seats in the 336-member parliament, falling short of the 169 needed for a majority.
The two parties, which have a history of bitter rivalry, said they had secured enough seats to elect Sharif as the new prime minister with the support of some smaller parties and independent lawmakers.
“The numbers of Pakistan Peoples Party and Muslim League-Nawaz have been completed and God willing, we will now act on government formation,” Bhutto sicon told a joint press conference at his residence, held after midnight. “It is hoped that God willing, Shehbaz Sharif sahib will soon become the prime minister of the country once again.”
The PPP would not join the cabinet but would cooperate on key issues such as reviving the economy, which is facing a balance of payments crisis, and combating Islamist militancy, which has plagued the country for years.
The two parties said they had also decided on distributing other key posts, such as the speaker and deputy speaker of the assembly, the chairman and deputy chairman of the Senate, and the governors of the provinces of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Punjab.
However, they did not reveal the names of their nominees, saying they would announce them later.
The two parties would form a coalition government in the province of Balochistan, where they claimed to have the support of a majority of lawmakers.
“We pray that the upcoming government manages to overcome the external and internal problems faced by the country,” Bhutto-Zardari said, adding that the presidential election would follow the prime ministerial election. “We are thankful to the PML-N for throwing its weight behind PPP candidate Asif Ali Zardari.”
Zardari, who was president from 2008 to 2013, said they allied for the sake of the country and its future generations. “We reassure everyone that our struggle is for Pakistan and future generations.”
According to the constitution, the first session of the new National Assembly has to be summoned by Feb. 29. The members will elect the speaker and deputy speaker through a secret ballot, followed by the election of the prime minister.
The president’s election will take place after the completion of the government formation process in the center and the provinces, as well as the Senate elections due in the first week of March.
The current president, Arif Alvi, a close ally of Khan, has been serving an extended term since his five-year tenure expired in September last year.
The agreement between the two parties, which have often been at odds in the past, is expected to end the political deadlock that emerged after the Feb. 8 election, which was marred by allegations of rigging and violence.
But it also raises the prospect of some political instability in the future, as independent candidates loyal to Imran Khan, the jailed former prime minister, have the highest number of seats in the lower house, with 101, but they cannot form a government on their own, having run as individuals and not as a party.
Khan, who remains in jail on a slew of charges, has waged an unprecedented campaign of defiance against the country’s powerful military, which he blames for his removal in a parliamentary no-confidence vote in April 2022.
The new government would inherit a $350 billion economy that narrowly avoided a default last year, thanks to a $3 billion bailout from the International Monetary Fund. The current IMF program expires next month, and the new government will have to quickly secure another lifeline to keep the economy afloat.
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