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Pakistan\u2019s two main political dynasties reached an agreement late on Tuesday to form a coalition government, ensuring that candidates aligned with former Prime Minister Imran Khan will not take power despite having won the most seats in last week\u2019s election.<\/p>\n
Leaders of the party favored by the country\u2019s powerful military, the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz, or P.M.L.N., announced that they had joined forces with another major party, the Pakistan People\u2019s Party, and others to reach a two-thirds majority in the incoming Parliament.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis is not a time for disagreements, but to unite,\u201d said Shehbaz Sharif, a former prime minister whom the coalition said it would nominate to regain that post. \u201cLet\u2019s move forward, move the economy forward, end mutual differences.\u201d<\/p>\n
The announcement came five days after a national election that most had expected P.M.L.N. to win easily after it received the backing of the military, which has frequently engineered electoral outcomes. In a stunning upset, candidates allied with Mr. Khan routed the two longstanding major parties, defying a monthslong military crackdown on their own party and delivering a sharp rebuke to the country\u2019s generals.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
The election results set off days of political jockeying. As P.M.L.N. and the P.P.P. discussed joining forces, the country waited to see if Mr. Khan, who is serving multiple jail sentences on charges he says are politically motivated, could pull off another upset and form a coalition of his own.<\/p>\n
While Tuesday\u2019s announcement confirms that members of Mr. Khan\u2019s party, Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf, or P.T.I., will sit in the opposition in Parliament, they will be far from sidelined, potentially posing a serious challenge to the coalition government.<\/p>\n
P.T.I. has accused the military of tampering with the vote count in dozens of races and has promised a long, bruising court battle to challenge the results. For many Pakistanis, those accusations damage the legitimacy of Mr. Sharif\u2019s coalition, which P.T.I. leaders have accused of forming a government with \u201cstolen votes.\u201d<\/p>\n
The P.M.L.N. announcement on Tuesday that the coalition would nominate Mr. Sharif to serve as prime minister ended days of speculation over whether he or his older brother, Nawaz Sharif, a three-time prime minister, would lead the next government.<\/p>\n
The younger Mr. Sharif, 72, led a coalition government after Mr. Khan\u2019s ouster by Parliament in 2022. He is seen as more deferential to the military than is his brother, who has fallen out with the country\u2019s generals multiple times after pushing for more civilian control of the government.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
Putting forward the younger Mr. Sharif as prime minister suggests that the military will retain its tight grip on the country\u2019s politics from behind the scenes, analysts say.<\/p>\n
The previous coalition government led by Mr. Sharif was deeply unpopular and criticized for failing to address an economic crisis that has sent inflation to record highs in recent years. The country\u2019s economy has been surviving on a $3 billion bailout from the International Monetary Fund.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt will be an uphill task for Shehbaz Sharif\u2019s government,\u201d said Muneeb Farooq, a Lahore-based political analyst. \u201cThe expected economic turnaround which everyone keeps talking about is far from reality.\u201d<\/p>\n
P.M.L.N. leaders said that the elder Mr. Sharif\u2019s daughter, Maryam Nawaz Sharif, will be nominated to lead the provincial government in Punjab Province, the home of the Sharif political dynasty and where it has recently faced a strong challenge from P.T.I.<\/p>\n
The move was seen as an effort by the elder Mr. Sharif to pass on the party\u2019s baton to his daughter.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
Asif Ali Zardari, a co-chairman of the Pakistan People\u2019s Party, and officials from several other smaller parties expressed support for Shehbaz Sharif to form the next government after the leaders held a meeting in Islamabad, the capital, late on Tuesday night.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe will take Pakistan out of difficult times,\u201d said Mr. Zardari, who is expected to be the country\u2019s next president, a largely ceremonial post. His wife, Benazir Bhutto, was a two-time prime minister of Pakistan and was assassinated in 2007.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n