He is known as a diligent administrator with such a great love of poetry that he often opens official meetings with recitals of famous revolutionary Urdu poets. After Shehbaz Sharif was appointed as Pakistan’s 23rd prime minister on Monday, his first words to parliament were those from a poem by Ata ul Haq Qasmi, a modern Pakistani poet and commentator, loftily espousing that “one must set himself free, from all bounds of desires”.
His ascension to the prime minister’s office marks the return of the wealthy Sharif family as one of the most powerful political dynasties in Pakistan. His brother, Nawaz Sharif, was prime minister three times between 1990 and 2017, during which time Shehbaz served as the chief minister of Punjab, Pakistan’s most populous state.
