Over the past few decades, the semi-feudal society and politics of Pakistan have been characterized by patriarchy, familism, and kinship. The family system that was entrenched in Pakistan's politics collapsed in 2016. By winning the election, Imran Khan Niazi ended decades of rule by Nawaz Sharif's Pakistan Muslim League (Noon) and former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto's son Bilawal Bhutto's Pakistan People's Party (PPP).
Even though Imran's previous political career was not long, his achievement sparked worldwide debate. The irony of fate is that Imran Khan could not be able to stay in power for long. He abdicated the throne almost three and a half years after being elected as Prime Minister. Shehbaz Sharif has re-emerged in politics as a result of Imran Khan's dramatic defeat.
If we want to see the emergence of Shehbaz Sharif, we have to go back to the previous history. From 2008 until 2013, the Pakistan Peoples Party was in power,and news of their extreme corruption spread all over the world. Yousuf Raza Gilani, the Prime Minister of the Peoples Party, was deposed for corruption. At the same time, there was such a negative attitude towards Benazir Bhutto's husband that everyone called him Mr. 10% because of his moral degeneration.
By using this corruption as an agenda, the Muslim League (Noon) came to power in 2013. Nawaz Sharif, brother of Shehbaz Sharif, was Prime Minister at that time. On April 3, 2016, Mosaic Fonseca, one of the world's leading organizations for the protection of privacyleaked the Panama Papers, one of the world's most egregious scandals.
Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif's name was also included for doing offshore business without paying VAT. As a result, the Supreme Court fired him for corruption, and finally, he moved to London. In short, then Shehbaz Sharif took the helm of the Muslim League (Noon). However, he had successfully served as the Chief Minister of Punjab three times earlier.
Let us now look at the current political situation in Pakistan. Encompassing Imran Khan, the Western powers, the Muslim League (Noon), and the Pakistan People's Party were plotting conspiracies. As allies, they also recruited Jamaat-e-Ulama Islam, Pakistan Democratic Movement, BalochistanAwami Party, MuttahidaQaumi Party, and Muslim League (Qaaf). Maulana Fazlur Rahman of Jamaat-e-Ulema-e-Islam worked his hardest to unite all the opposition parties.
The most interesting thing is that the friend who helped Imran Khan the most in coming to power (Jahangir Tarin) even joined with the conspirators. Because, when Imran Khan came to power, his friend Jahangir Tarin started committing extreme levels of corruption and as a result, Imran Khan condemned and punished him in court. In essence, Jahangir Tarin teamed up with the conspirators to exact vengeance.
The incident started with the Russia-Ukraine conflict. Coincidentally, Imran Khan visited Russia just hours after the Russian invasion of Ukraine. For that reason, he was criticized a lot in the western media. Pakistan abstained from voting against Russia at the UN also.
However, before March, Imran Khan was slowly losing popularity in Pakistan. The people of Pakistan were displeased with him over the skyrocketing prices of commodities, inflation, and the abnormal fall in the rupee.
On March 7, the US threatened Pakistan with a "no-confidence motion" that would soon be passed in Parliament, with dire consequences. Surprisingly, the very next day, March 7, Pakistan's main opposition party, Nawaz Sharif's Muslim League (Noon) and Bhutto's People's Partytabled a no-confidence motion in Parliament against Imran Khan. So many people started complaining that their no-confidence motion against Imran Khan was at the behest of America.
But as the matter of fact, why did the opposition party introduce a no-confidence motion against the government at this timewhen there is only one year left for the national election? There are several reasons for this. First, there are allegations of high-profile corruption against the chief leaders in the opposition. They could be arrested at any time.
In the politics of Pakistan, any party must win 172 of the 342 seats to gain power. In this case, Imran Khan's coalition government had 178 seats while the opposition party had 162 seats. As a result,
removing Imran Khan from power was not a difficult task for them. Maulana Fazlur Rahman continued to issue fatwas against Imran Khan and Shehbaz Sharif used to recruit many leaders and activists of Imran Khan's coalition government in exchange for money. As a result, Imran Khan's defeat began to accelerate.
Realizing the impending defeat, Imran Khan dissolved parliament and promised to hold another election within 90 days. But he did not get over it. On the night of April 9, 174 out of 342 members of parliament voted against him in the parliament of Pakistan and he was forced to step down.
Imran Khan is the first prime minister to lose a vote of no-confidencein the history of Pakistan.
If Imran Khan loses the no-confidence vote, the argument over who would be the next prime minister had been going on for a long time. Though Hamza Shehbaz, Maryam Nawaz, and Shah Mohammad Qureshi were strong candidates, most of the MPs voted for Shehbaz Sharif.
Although he is not well known outside the country, he has a reputation inside the country for his administrative skills. So all in all, public opinion is in favour of him. And this is how Shehbaz Sharif emerged dramatically in the politics of Pakistan.
S M Sayem, Student, Department of Economics, University of Chittagong
