Shehbaz Sharif served as the PM of a coalition government from April 2022 to August 2023
Islamabad:
Pakistan’s newly-elected Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif today called himself the “Leader of Opposition” by mistake in his victory speech in the country’s National Assembly.
Shehbaz Sharif, the consensus candidate of the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) and the Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) for the PM post, got 201 votes in the 336-member House. His challenger Omar Ayub Khan, from jailed former PM Imran Khan’s Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf, secured just 92.
Even Shehbaz Sharif knows he should be Opposition leader right now#مینڈیٹ_پر_ڈاکہ_نامنظورpic.twitter.com/qhZATVrGyq
— PTI (@PTIofficial) March 3, 2024
In his victory speech, the 72-year-old PML-N president thanked his elder brother Nawaz Sharif and his allies for putting their trust in him.
He then went on to mistakenly refer to himself as the “Leader of Opposition” in his speech as he expressed his gratitude to his party members.
“I want to express heartfelt thanks to my party members who voted and elected me the Leader of Opposition of this House,” he said.
Shehbaz Sharif will be administered the oath of office tomorrow at the Presidential mansion – Aiwan-e-Sadr.
He earlier served as the PM of a coalition government from April 2022 to August 2023 before Parliament was dissolved for elections.
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)
