Pakistan elects center-right prime minister after ousting Imran Khan with no-confidence vote

Pakistani man holding a flag with a picture of Shehbaz Sharif

(Image credit: Photo by AAMIR QURESHI/AFP via Getty Images)

published 11 April 2022

Pakistan's parliament elected Shehbaz Sharif as the country's 23rd prime minister on Monday after removing Prime Minister Imran Khan from office with a no-confidence vote Sunday, Al Jazeera reports.

Shehbaz Sharif leads the center-right Pakistan Muslim League and is the younger brother of three-time Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, who was removed from office in 2017 amid corruption allegations.

With the election of the new prime minister, a major political crisis appears to have been averted. Ahead of Sunday's no-confidence vote, Khan — a former cricket star who took office in 2018 — repeatedly claimed the vote was part of an American plot to depose him and said he would not accept the vote's results if he lost. Khan's allies in parliament blocked the no-confidence motion on April 3 in a move the country's Supreme Court quickly declared unconstitutional.

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Grayson Quay was the weekend editor at TheWeek.com. His writing has also been published in National Review, the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, Modern Age, The American Conservative, The Spectator World, and other outlets. Grayson earned his M.A. from Georgetown University in 2019.

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