Shehbaz Sharif elected Pakistan's PM, Won't sit with

Shehbaz Sharif, the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) president, was elected unopposed as the Prime Minister of Pakistan by the National Assembly on Monday. He will take the oath as the country's 23rd prime minister tonight(Monday night). Earlier former prime minister Imran Khan has said that he will not sit in the assemblies with "thieves". His party, the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf, boycotted the voting and staged a walkout before resigning en masse, effectively ending any opposition to Mr Sharif's election. Sharif secured 174 votes, while Khan had secured 176 votes in 2018. Ousted premier Khan and most of his party's lawmakers resigned their seats in the assembly immediately before voting started. Khan's Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) party had also submitted papers nominating former foreign minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi as its candidate for prime minister.

Shehbaz, 70, is the younger brother of three-time prime minister Nawaz Sharif, who was barred by the Supreme Court in 2017 from holding public office and subsequently went abroad for medical treatment after serving just a few months of a 10-year jail sentence for corruption charges. Sharif said a selected prime minister was removed using constitutional and legal means, the first time a PM was removed through a no-confidence motion. Sharif added that will he will immediately resign if the letter about a "foreign conspiracy" is proved to be genuine. Shehbaz Sharif and his son Hamza Shehbaz and Suleman Shehbaz -- have been named in a high-profile money laundering case in November 2020. Suleman is residing in the UK.

Earlier, a Pakistani court deferred the indictment of Shehbaz Sharif and his son Hamza Shehbaz until April 27 and gave an extension on their anticipatory bail, allowing the PML-N chief to become the new Prime Minister.