Shehbaz Sharif

Mian Muhammad Shehbaz Sharif (born 23 September 1951) is a Pakistani politician and businessman who has served as the prime minister of Pakistan since 2024, having previously been in the role between 2022 and 2023. He has also served as the president of the Pakistan Muslim League (N) and chief minister of Punjab three times, spanning over 12 years, making him the longest-serving person in the role.

Sharif was elected to the Punjab Assembly in 1988 and later to the National Assembly of Pakistan in 1990, when his brother became head of the conservative Islami Jamhuri Ittihad (IJI), an alliance founded by Lt. General Hamid Gul. The alliance went on to win the election with the covert monetary support of Generals Mirza Aslam Beg and Asad Durrani, which was declared illegal by the Supreme Court in the Asghar Khan case in 2012, enabling his brother to become Pakistan’s 12th prime minister.

He was re-elected to the Punjab Assembly in 1993 and appointed leader of the opposition. He was elected as chief minister of Pakistan's most populous province, Punjab, for the first time on 20 February 1997. After the 1999 Pakistani coup d'état, Sharif, along with his family, spent years of self-exile in Saudi Arabia, returning to Pakistan in 2007. Sharif was appointed chief minister for a second term after the PML(N)'s victory in Punjab in the 2008 Pakistani general election. He was elected as chief minister of Punjab for the third time after the 2013 Punjab provincial election and served his term until his party's defeat in the 2018 Punjab provincial election. Sharif was nominated as the president of the PML(N) after his brother, Nawaz Sharif, was disqualified from holding office in the wake of the Panama Papers case.