Dark Horse Wins The PM Race

Senator Anwaar ul Haq Kakar selected as caretaker PM

Liaquat Ali

Islamabad: Senator Anwaar ul Haq Kakar has won the race to become the 8th caretaker prime minister when he was not even considered to be in the race.

The premier and the opposition leader finalised Senator Anwaarul Haq Kakar’s name during a meeting at the PM House earlier in the day. They subsequently signed and sent the advice to the president for the final approval.

President Alvi swiftly approved the summary under Article 224-1A of the Constitution.

Although the name of Senator Kakar has been approved, the officials of the presidency said he would be sworn in on August 14 — Independence Day.

Kakar’s appointment has come after the National Assembly was dissolved on August 9 — just three days before it could complete its five-year term.

PM Shehbaz and the opposition leaders’ choice surprised many as Kakar, a BAP leader who was elected as a senator in 2018 from Balochistan, was not even discussed once in the media’s wild guessing game spanning over the past few weeks.

Economic stabilisation is the top challenge with the $350bn economy on a narrow recovery path after a bailout from the International Monetary Fund averted a sovereign debt default. Economic reforms have already fuelled historic inflation and interest rates.

Critics say that Shehbaz Sharif government failed to safeguard civil liberties, facilitated the military’s influence over politics, and allowed a heavy-handed crackdown against Mr. Khan’s party, jailing its key leaders and thousands of its workers.

Under Pakistan’s constitution, a neutral caretaker government oversees national elections, which must be held within 90 days of the dissolution of the parliament’s lower house – which in this instance means early November.. But there are growing doubts that the country will go to the polls by that deadline; after the outgoing government approved a new census in its final days, new electoral boundaries must be drawn up by the Election Commission.

The exercise of drawing new boundaries for hundreds of federal and provincial constituencies in a country of 241 million people may take at least six months or more, according to a former commission official.

The interim prime minister, Mr. Kakar, is from one of the country’s least populous provinces, Balochistan, and enjoys good support across the country’s political divide. Analysts say Mr. Kakar’s political and religious views lean toward the center-right, contributing to his credibility within religious circles and religio-political parties.

Senator Anwaarul Haq Kakar is a seasoned political activist, is media savvy with excellent public relations skills.

He also remained Chairperson for the Committee of Overseas Pakistanis and Human Resource Development and members of other committees including Business Advisory Committee, Finance and Revenue, Foreign Affairs, Science and Technology.