Shehbaz Sharif, the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) president, was elected unopposed as the new Prime Minister of Pakistan by Parliament on Monday after rival candidate Shah Mahmood Qureshi announced that his Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf party will boycott the voting and staged a walkout.
Here's what you need to know about him:
1) Shehbaz, 70, was the only candidate left in the race after Qureshi's boycott of the election in the National Assembly.
2) Shehbaz, the younger brother of former three-time prime minister Nawaz Sharif is the 32nd Prime Minister of Pakistan.
3) After a military coup deposed the government in 1999, Shehbaz along with family spent years of self-exile in Saudi Arabia, returning to Pakistan in 2007.
4) He has served as Chief Minister of the country's most populous and politically crucial Punjab province thrice and served his term until his party's defeat in the 2018 general election.
5) In 2019, 23 properties belonging to Shehbaz and his son, Hamza Sharif, were frozen accusing them of money laundering.
6) In 2020, NAB arrested Shehbaz at Lahore High Court and he was incarcerated pending trial. In April 2021, Lahore High Court released him on bail in money laundering reference.
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