ISLAMABAD: No candidate has been shortlisted to lead the country’s caretaker setup, said Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif on Tuesday, as the incumbent government plans to dissolve the National Assembly three days before the end of its constitutional tenure.
The prime minister made the statement in response to a question during an interview with a local news channel. He confirmed that a consultation process was ongoing among the top leaders of all coalition partners and assured it was going to be a “collective decision.”
“It is happening,” he told DawnNews TV when asked about political consultations over the name of the caretaker prime minister. “It is a continuous process. I think it should be over in a day or two.”
He maintained it was important to have someone who was acceptable to all political players in the role of the caretaker prime minister.
“It will be the collective decision of the leaders of coalition parties and [former prime minister] Mian Nawaz Sharif,” he added, referring to his elder brother and the founding leader of his Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) party.
Sharif refused to say if the person heading the interim setup would be from the PML-N party or not.
Asked if any names had been shortlisted for the post, he responded in the negative.
He said the biggest achievement of his coalition administration was to save the country from default after assuming its political power last year in April.
Sharif and his allies took over after former prime minister Imran Khan was ousted from power in a parliamentary no-confidence vote.
Responding to a question about the approval of the new census data by a top government body, he said that his administration had fulfilled its constitutional responsibility by sharing the statistics with the Council of Common Interests.
With the approval of the census, the Election Commission of Pakistan is required to redraw national and provincial constituencies based on its findings, which could delay the upcoming general elections.
