Sherif Seeks Pakistan Top Post After Imran Khan's Ouster

Opposition politician Shehbaz Sharif submitted his nomination to be Pakistan's next prime minister to the legislature on Sunday, his party said, after incumbent Imran Khan lost a no-confidence vote in parliament after nearly four years in power.

Photo Insert: Chief of the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N), Shehbaz Sharif

The younger brother of three-time prime minister Nawaz Sharif, Shehbaz, 70, has led a bid by the opposition in parliament to topple former cricket star Khan, and he is widely expected to replace him following a vote on Monday, Asif Shahzad and Syed Raza Hassan reported for Reuters.

The chief of the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) had handed in his nomination papers, Marriyum Aurangzeb, a spokeswoman for the party said. Khan, the first Pakistani prime minister to be ousted by a no confidence vote, had clung on for almost a week after a united opposition first tried to remove him.

Opposition parties were able to secure 174 votes in the 342-member house for the no-confidence motion, giving them the majority they needed to enable Monday's vote to elect a new premier.

By dissolving parliament, he delayed the vote that he said was part of a foreign-backed plot against him, but the Supreme Court ordered parliament to convene and vote. Khan's government fell in the early hours of Sunday after a 13-hour session that included repeated delays and lengthy speeches by lawmakers from his Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf party.

The vote went ahead after the powerful army chief, General Qamar Javed Bajwa, met Khan, two sources who declined to be identified said, as criticism mounted over the delay to the parliamentary process. The military has ruled the country of 220 million people for almost half its nearly 75-year history.

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