Pakistan’s new cabinet maintains most of Sharif allies
The cabinet of Pakistan’s new Prime Minister Shahid Khaqan Abbasi has been sworn in in the capital, Islamabad.
President Mamnoon Hussain administered the oath of office to the new ministers at an official inauguration ceremony in Islamabad on Friday, Geo News reported.
Prime Minister Abbasi, who recently took over after former PM Nawaz Sharif was ousted over financial corruption, has largely maintained the ministers who worked under Sharif.
A close associate of Sharif, Ishaq Dar, has retained his previous post as finance minister despite having been disqualified along with Sharif by the Supreme Court last Friday.
It was not immediately clear how the news of Dar’s reinstatement would be confronted by the judicial authorities. Sharif himself resigned from the country’s highest government post shortly after the Supreme Court ruling that disqualified him.
Abbasi, too, is a close ally of Sharif, and he reportedly huddled with Sharif soon after being elected by the parliament to replace him.
In the new cabinet, Abbasi, a former petroleum minister, keeps a ministry portfolio. He will head a new ministry formed from a merger of the energy and petroleum ministries.
Pakistan’s old cabinet was dissolved when Sharif resigned.
The Supreme Court ruling against Sharif and Dar were apparently based on leaked documents — the so-called Panama Papers — that unveiled the Sharif family’s offshore finances.
Abbasi will be prime minister until parliamentary elections next year.
Political analysts believe the prime minister’s post will ultimately go to Nawaz Sharif’s brother Shahbaz, who should first secure election to the National Assembly, the lower house of the parliament, to become eligible for the position.
A day after being dismissed, Sharif told his ruling party, Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N), that he was nominating Shahbaz as his successor and a nominee to run in the elections next year.
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