Shahbaz Sharif elected 23rd prime minister of Pakistan

Shehbaz Sharif, the 70-year-old younger brother of former three-time Pak prime minister Nawaz Sharif, has been elected unopposed as the 23rd Prime Minister of Pakistan.

Pakistan's National Assembly (NA) elected the 23rd prime minister on Monday after the top slot fell vacant as Imran Khan was voted out of power through a no-confidence motion Saturday night.

There were two candidates contesting for the prime minister's post — Pakistan Muslim League's (Nawaz) (PML-N) Shehbaz Sharif and Imran Khan's party, Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf's (PTI) Shah Mahmood Qureshi.

The PTI walked out of the National Assembly session convened to elect the 23rd prime minister after Deputy Speaker Qasim Suri and former foreign minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi repeated the party's claim that the toppling of their government was a part of a "foreign conspiracy".

Qureshi announced that they won't become part of the "conspiracy" and boycotted the session after announcing to resign en masse.

The former Punjab governor is little known outside his home country but has a reputation domestically as an effective administrator more than as a politician.

Analysts say Shehbaz, unlike Nawaz, enjoys amicable relations with Pakistan's military, which traditionally controls foreign and defence policy in the nuclear-armed nation of 220 million people. 

Shehbaz Sharif, part of the wealthy Sharif dynasty, is best known for his direct, "can-do" administrative style, which was on display when, as chief minister of Punjab province, he worked closely with China on Beijing-funded projects.

He also said in an interview last week that good relations with the United States were critical for Pakistan for better or for worse, in stark contrast to Khan's recently antagonistic relationship with Washington.

As chief minister of Punjab, Pakistan's most populous province, Shehbaz Sharif planned and executed a number of ambitious infrastructure mega-projects, including Pakistan's first modern mass transport system in his hometown, the eastern city of Lahore.

According to local media, the outgoing Chinese consul general wrote to Sharif last year praising his "Punjab Speed" execution of projects under the huge China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) initiative.

Unlike Khan, who has regularly denounced India's Hindu nationalist Prime Minister Narendra Modi, the Sharif political dynasty has been more dovish towards the fellow nuclear-armed neighbour, with which Pakistan has fought three wars.

In terms of his relationship with the powerful military, Sharif has long played the public "good cop" to Nawaz's "bad cop" - the latter has had several public spats with the army.

Shehbaz was born in Lahore into a wealthy industrial family and was educated locally. After that he entered the family business and jointly owns a Pakistani steel company.

He entered politics in Punjab, becoming its chief minister for the first time in 1997 before he was caught up in national political upheaval and imprisoned following a military coup. He was then sent into exile in Saudi Arabia in 2000.

Shehbaz returned from exile in 2007 to resume his political career, again in Punjab.

He entered the national political scene when he became the chief of the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) party after Nawaz was found guilty in 2017 on charges of concealing assets related to the Panama Papers revelations.

The Sharif family and supporters say the cases were politically motivated.