Islamabad: Pakistan Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif on Monday inducted 19 members into his Cabinet, ending the tenuous wait for the completion of government formation in the cash-strapped country.
Newly-elected President Asif Ali Zardari administered the oath to 19 members of the Cabinet at a ceremony held in the President’s House and was attended by Prime Minister Sharif among others.
Those who took oath included Ishaq Dar, Khawaja Asif, Ahsan Iqbal, Muhammad Aurangzeb, Azam Tarar, Rana Tanvir, Mohsin Naqvi, Ahad Cheema, Khalid Maqbool Siddiqui, Riaz Prizada, Qaiser Sheikh, Shaza Fatima, Aleem Khan, Jam Kamal, Amir Muqam, Awais Leghari, Atta Tarar, Salik Hussian and Musaddiq Malik.
The portfolio of the new minister will be announced later.
Aurangzeb will likely be the finance minister, Dar as the foreign minister, and Khawaja Asif the defence minister. Azam Tarar will be the law minister, Atta Tarar as information minister, Musaddik Malik as petroleum minister, Mohsin Naqvi as interior minister and Ahad Cheema as minister for Kashmir affairs.
Three technocrats — Muhammad Aurangzeb, Mohsin Naqvi and Ahad Cheema have been included in the cabinet as advisors. The cabinet has only one woman, Shaza Fatima.
Jailed former prime minister Imran Khan’s Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) party leaders have criticised the formation of the Cabinet, saying it comprises those leaders who have lost the people’s mandate, referring to independents backed by the PTI failing to form a government though they won the maximum number of seats in the February 8 elections.
PTI leader Hammad Azhar has termed the newly sworn-in federal cabinet as a “weak cabinet composed of outdated boomers”.
In a post on X, Azhar said the federal cabinet members did not have a “clue about policy reform or vision” and were mostly those “rejected by the people”.
Raoof Hasan, another senior PTI leader, posted “Like President, like Prime Minister, like Cabinet – an unconstitutional & illegal conglomerate of people who have entered the power corridors by stealing people’s mandate.
“They neither have legitimacy nor trust of the electorate to rule & take tough decisions to bring the country out of the deepening quagmire it is stuck in,” he posted on X.
Prime Minister Shehbaz has initially decided to keep his Cabinet small, but more ministers will be inducted in the second phase, Geo News quoted sources as saying.
The swearing-in of the federal Cabinet happened a week after Shehbaz took the oath of office as the 24th premier of the country, while President Zardari was sworn in as the head of state a day ago.
The oath-taking came hours after Prime Minister Sharif recommended the 19 names, a day after he held a marathon meeting with the leaders of his inner circle on the matter.
The cabinet include familiar faces who were also part of the previous government.
They include ex-defence minister Khawaja Asif, former finance minister Ishaq Dar, ex-planning minister Ahsan Iqbal, former law minister Azam Nazeer Tarar and ex-state minister for petroleum Musadik Malik.
This time Dar lost the race for the Ministry of Finance and the coveted post fell to Muhammad Aurangzeb, a well-known banker.
A dark horse to rise to the cabinet is former caretaker Punjab chief minister Mohsin Naqvi, who is also currently the Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) chairman.
He is considered close to Zardari and the link may have worked in his favour.
The process of government formation has been completed after the cabinet was sworn in.
The Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz’s main ally, the Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP), has refused to become part of the federal Cabinet.
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