Mian Muhammad Nawaz Sharif is a Pakistani businessman and politician who served as the Prime Minister of Pakistan for three non-consecutive terms. He is the longest-serving prime minister of Pakistan, having served a total of more than 9 years across three tenures. Each term has ended in his ousting.
The Pakistan Muslim League (N) (PML(N) or PML-N; Urdu: پاکستان مسلم لیگ (ن)) is a centre-right, conservative liberal political party in Pakistan. It is currently the third-largest party in the Senate and the largest in the National Assembly. The party was founded in 1993, when a number of prominent conservative politicians in the country joined hands after the dissolution of Islamic Democratic Alliance, under the leadership of former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif. The party's platform is generally conservative, which involves supporting free markets, deregulation, lower taxes and private ownership. Although the party historically supported social conservatism, in recent years, the party's political ideology and platform has become more liberal on social and cultural issues; however, members have been accused of using Islamist populist rhetoric. Alongside the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) and Pakistan People's Party (PPP), it is one of the three major political parties of the country.
The prime minister of Pakistan is the head of government of the Islamic Republic of Pakistan. Executive authority is vested in the prime minister and his chosen cabinet, despite the president of Pakistan serving as the nominal head of executive. The prime minister is often the leader of the party or the coalition with a majority in the lower house of the Parliament of Pakistan, the National Assembly where he serves as Leader of the House. Prime minister holds office by virtue of their ability to command the confidence of the National Assembly. The prime minister is designated as the "chief executive of the Islamic Republic".
Fazal-ur-Rehman is a Pakistani politician who is the president of Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam (F). He is also the president of the Pakistan Democratic Movement (PDM), a coalition of political parties which ousted then prime minister Imran Khan through a no-confidence motion in 2022. He has been a member of the National Assembly since February 2024 and previously served in that position between 1988 and 2018. He was also the Leader of the Opposition from 2004 to 2007. He is a supporter of the Taliban government in Afghanistan and has demanded for its international recognition. In the 1980s, he was part of the Movement for the Restoration of Democracy (MRD), which was formed to end the military regime of General Zia-ul-Haq.
Mian Muhammad Shehbaz Sharif is a Pakistani politician and businessman who is currently serving as the 23rd prime minister of Pakistan since March 2024, having previously served in the post from April 2022 to August 2023. He has also served as the president of the Pakistan Muslim League (N) (PML-N). Previously in his political career, he served as the chief minister of Punjab three times, making him the longest-serving chief minister of Punjab.
Maryam Nawaz Sharif is a Pakistani politician, currently serving as the 20th Chief Minister of Punjab, in office since 26 February 2024. She is the daughter of former Prime Minister of Pakistan Nawaz Sharif and her initial involvement in public life was through her family’s philanthropic organisations. However, her political career began in earnest in 2012 when she took charge of the election campaign for the 2013 general elections. Following the elections, she was appointed as the Chairperson of the Prime Minister’s Youth Programme in 2013. Despite her active role, she resigned from the position in 2014 after her appointment was legally challenged in the Lahore High Court.
General elections were held in Pakistan on 25 July 2018 to elect the members of the 15th National Assembly and the four Provincial Assemblies. The three major parties were Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI), led by Imran Khan, the Pakistan Muslim League, led by Shehbaz Sharif, and the Pakistan People's Party, led by Bilawal Bhutto. The PTI won the most seats in the National Assembly but fell short of a majority; the party subsequently formed a coalition government with several smaller parties. At the provincial level, the PTI remained the largest party in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP); the Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) retained its dominance in Sindh; and the newly formed Balochistan Awami Party (BAP) emerged as the largest party in Balochistan. In Punjab, the result was a hung parliament, with the Pakistan Muslim League (N) winning the most seats. However, after several independent MPAs joined the PTI, the latter became the largest party and was able to form a government.
Marriyum Aurangzeb is a Pakistani politician who currently serves as Senior Minister in the Government of Punjab, in office since March 2024.
The 2014 Tsunami March, also called the Azadi movement, was a protest march in Pakistan from 14 August to 17 December 2014. The march was organized by the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) and Pakistan Awami Tehreek (PAT) against the Pakistani government of Nawaz Sharif. PTI claimed systematic election-rigging in the 2013 general election, and PAT demanded justice for the culprits in the 2014 Lahore clash. Then PTI chairman Imran Khan had announced plans for an August march from Lahore to Islamabad with a group of protesters in a PTI jalsa (demonstration) in Bahawalpur on 27 June 2014. On 17 December, a day after the 2014 Peshawar school massacre, Khan called off the protest.
The Panama Papers case, or the Panamagate case, was a 2017 landmark decision by the Supreme Court of Pakistan that disqualified Nawaz Sharif, the prime minister of Pakistan, from holding public office for life.
General elections, originally scheduled to be held in 2023, were held in Pakistan on 8 February 2024 to elect the members of the 16th National Assembly. The Election Commission of Pakistan announced the detailed schedule on 15 December 2023.
Umar Ata Bandial is a Pakistani jurist who served as the 28th Chief Justice of Pakistan from February 2022 to September 2023. He was appointed as the Chief Justice after the approval by President Arif Alvi on 13 January 2022, after which he assumed his office on 2 February 2022 and retired on 16 September 2023.
Faiz HameedHI(M) is a retired three-star general of the Pakistan Army, awaiting court martial. Faiz was the country's top Spy-master and served as the 29th Director General of the ISI from 2019 to 2022. He was commissioned in the Baloch Regiment having served as GOC 16th Infantry Division Pano Akil. He last served as Commander of the XXXI Corps before taking premature retirement on 10 December 2022.
The Pakistan Democratic Movement was a coalition of political parties in Pakistan. It was founded in September 2020 as a opposition movement against Imran Khan, accusing his administration of poor governance, political victimization of opponents, and mismanaging the economy and foreign policy. Khan rebuked these allegations, during and after his tenure as Prime Minister
In April 2022, a no-confidence motion against Imran Khan led to his removal as the prime minister of Pakistan. Based largely on the Westminster system of legislature, the prime minister commands confidence of the majority of the lower house of Parliament, the National Assembly of Pakistan, under clause (2A) of Article 91 of the Constitution. Numerous opposition parties joined forces to file the motion of no confidence against Imran Khan in the National Assembly. It ultimately led to the removal of Khan from office as a majority passed the motion in the Lower House.
The premiership of Shehbaz Sharif began on 11 April, 2022 after he was nominated as a candidate for Prime Minister of Pakistan by opposition parties following a vote of no confidence in the incumbent prime minister, Imran Khan during the 2022 Pakistani constitutional crisis. He was sworn in as prime minister by Senate Chairman Sadiq Sanjrani while acting as president on behalf of Arif Alvi. Sharif remained in office until 14 August 2023, when he stepped down for a caretaker government to participate in the 2024 general election. After a heavily contested election, Sharif was re-elected as prime minister on 4 March 2024, defeating the PTI-backed Omar Ayub Khan.
Lettergate is an American-Pakistani political affair set off by a conversation at a farewell lunch for Asad Majeed Khan, then-Pakistani ambassador to the United States, on 7 March 2022 at Khan's official residence known as the Pakistan House. A diplomatic telegram was sent by Ambassador Khan to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs based on the notes taken by a note-taker from the embassy of Pakistan based in Washington, D.C. The telegram allegedly stated that in the course of the meeting, the United States had expressed a desire to the government of Pakistan for prime minister Imran Khan to be removed from office because of his neutral stance on the war between Russia and Ukraine and refusal to back the Ukrainians, promising warmer relations if Pakistan agrees while threatening isolation if it does not. The lunch was attended by US officials including then US Assistant Secretary of State for South and Central Asian Affairs Donald Lu and Deputy Assistant Secretary Lesslie Viguerie. The Pakistani diplomats attending the lunch meeting included Deputy Chief of Mission Syed Naveed Bokhari and the defence attaché.
On 3 November 2022, Imran Khan, a former prime minister of Pakistan and chairman of the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) political party, was shot in an attempted assassination in Wazirabad, Punjab, during the 2022 Azadi March II against the Pakistan government. The gunman also injured a number of other PTI leaders and killed a supporter. The attacker's name is Muhammad Naveed and another unidentified gunman was killed.
The 2022–2023 Pakistan political unrest was a series of political crises after the ousting of former prime minister Imran Khan through a no-confidence motion in April 2022. The crises began in 2022 when the opposition joined hands and submitted a no-confidence motion against Imran Khan's government in the National Assembly. Prime Minister Imran Khan urged the Pakistani establishment not to stay neutral and play its role to save his government and not let historical rival politicians with alleged corruption charges take over, but the establishment refused.
On 9 May 2023, former Pakistani Prime Minister and politician Imran Khan was arrested from inside the High Court in Islamabad by National Accountability Bureau (NAB) on the charges of corruption in connection with the Al-Qadir Trust, which he owns alongside his wife, Bushra Bibi.
