Sharif’s brother set to assume Punjab top job

Islamabad: The Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N), which won the May 11 general election, has nominated Shahbaz Sharif for the office of chief minister of Punjab province, party sources said yesterday.

Shahbaz, younger brother of PML-N chief and prime minister-in-waiting Nawaz Sharif, has served twice in the past as chief minister of the key province, home to 60 per cent of the country’s 180 million people.

He is to be be elected chief minister by the newly elected Punjab assembly in which PML-N enjoys a two-thirds majority. The assembly has been summoned to hold its first session in provincial capital Lahore on Wednesday.

Shahbaz is known as a tough administrator and party officials cite development work carried out in the province during his previous two terms as a major factor contributing to the electoral triumph of the PML-N.

Towards the end of his previous tenure and just a few weeks before the general election, he introduced a modern bus service in Lahore costing billions of rupees.