Pakistan’s Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif has ruled out the possibility of the appointment of Finance Minister Ishaq Dar as the caretaker Prime Minister, saying a “neutral person” will be selected to lead the interim government next month to make upcoming general elections transparent.Shehbaz Sharif, also the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) party president indicated that Nawaz Sharif, three-time former prime minister and his elder brother, who has been living in self-imposed exile in London since 2019 will return to Pakistan in the next few weeks. The 73-year-old PML-N supremo will be the Prime Minister if the party wins the election, he said.He told Geo News that the notification of the dissolution of the National Assembly (NA) would be sent to President Arif Alvi a few days ahead of the completion of the tenure of the lower house of Parliament. He maintained that the NA will complete its tenure at 12 midnight on August 12.He said the caretaker set-up would be agreed upon after consultation with allied parties, PML-N supreme leader Nawaz Sharif, and the leader of opposition in the National Assembly Raja Riaz.PM Shehbaz’s remarks came after rumours suggesting that Dar would be appointed as the interim prime minister so that the cash-strapped country which recently received nearly $3 billion from the IMF as a bailout can implement the policies to overcome the financial woes.He said the PML-N would try to make seat adjustments with allied parties, adding that the party would field his candidate in the constitutes where they could not reach a consensus. A bill to empower the caretaker set-up to take policy decisions was recently passed by Parliament.In 2018, he became ineligible to hold public office for life after a Supreme Court verdict in the Panama Papers case. The PTI contested its members were not involved in the attacks, but the government and military rejected the claims and said they had “irrefutable evidence” of their involvement.“We had difficulty reaching an agreement with the International Monetary Fund, but now the nation has to change its mode of living. On the other hand, the new government will have to utilise all resources and do hard work to bring the country out of the economic crisis. If we fail to do so we will never be remembered as a nation,” he added.
