Update: Pakistan senator Anwaar-ul-haq Kakar was named caretaker prime minister on Saturday. Read more about him HERE.
Pakistan's outgoing Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif and Opposition leader Raja Riaz are racing against time to pick a caretaker leader to oversee a general election due by November. This comes after President Arif Alvi gave the duo an ultimatum to find a "suitable person" for the post by August 12.
The President dissolved the National Assembly, the lower house of Pakistan Parliament, on the PM's advice on August 9. In a letter to both Sharif and Riaz, Alvi said that under Article 224A, they should propose a name for interim PM within three days of the dissolution of the National Assembly.
According to sources, Pakistan People's Party (PPP) Chairman Bilawal Bhutto-Zardari told Sharif that his party would accept the premier's nominee for the caretaker slot. One of the reasons for the delay in picking the interim PM is apparently Sharif's Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) party's desire to see its own man in office, the Dawn newspaper reported.
According to sources quoted by the local media, Sharif wants to stay in office till August 14 so he could preside the flag-hoisting ceremony on Independence Day. The PML-N has not revealed its candidate and has kept everyone guessing.
Sadiq Sanjrani
Senate Chairman Sadiq Sanjrani is one of the strongest contender to become interim PM, a senior PML-N told Dawn. He is the country's youngest Chairman of the Senate and first-ever from the Balochistan province. He served as Pakistan's acting President in June-July this year.
Jalil Abbas Jilani
Jalil Abbas Jilani, a former diplomat, is one of the names proposed by the Pakistan People's Party. He served in Grade 22, the highest attainable rank for a civil servant in Pakistan, since 2010. He became the Foreign Secretary of Pakistan in 2012 and was later appointed as the country's 22nd ambassador to the US in December 2013. He remained in the post till February 2017. Currently, he is a Senior Director at the Centre for Aerospace and Security Studies (CASS) in Rawalpindi.
Tassaduq Hussain Jilani
Another name put forward by the PPP is Tassaduq Hussain Jilani, who was Pakistant's 21st chief justice from 2013 to 2014. He was appointed as a Lahore High Court judge in 1994 by former PM Benazir Bhutto and later elevated as a Supreme Court judge in 2004 by former PM Shaukat Aziz. In 2018, ousted PM Imran Khan's Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf proposed his name for caretaker PM.
Kamran Tessori
Muttahida Qaumi Movement-Pakistan (MQM-P) named Sindh Governor Kamran Tessori for the interim PM post. He belongs to a business family, which runs an international gold business, Tessori Gold. He was arrested in 2008 in connection with a real estate scam case. He was earlier accused of using his family money to influence MQM-P's decisions.
Other candidates
Former finance ministers Hafeez Sheikh and Ishaq Dar, former PM Shahid Khaqan Abbasi and ex-Principal secretary Fawad Hassan Fawad are among other likely contenders to the interim premier's post.
-- with PTI inputs
