Exclusive | What the New Pak Govt Will Look Like? News18 Accesses Sharif's Secret Note With 34 Names

Thirty federal ministers and four ministers of state are likely to take oath as part of newly elected Pakistan Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif’s cabinet, as per a note written by the PML-N leader to the cabinet division.

The note, accessed by News18, includes prominent names from parties that had banded together to oust the previous Imran Khan government through a hotly fought trust vote. The list includes Hina Rabbani Khar, Marriyum Aurangzeb, Khawaja Asif, Rana Sanaullah, Rana Tanvir and Sherry Rehman among others.

Sources told News18 that PML-Q leader Tariq Bashir Cheema will not take oath as his name has been excluded. PPP leader Bilawal Bhutto Zardari, who is speculated to get the foreign affairs ministry, is heading to London and may take oath after his return.

Pakistan’s parliament had last week elected Shehbaz Sharif, president of the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N), as the new prime minister after the ouster of Imran Khan. But the new cabinet could not be formed as Sharif wanted to accommodate all his allies in the government.

However, there was uncertainty about whether Jamiat Ulema-i-Islam-Fazl (JUI-F) would become a part of the cabinet or abstain over a disagreement about the distribution of ministries, the Dawn newspaper had reported, adding that Fazl will remain the government ally.

On Sunday, Sharif consulted the ruling coalition parties and met delegations of the Balochistan Awami Party (BAP) and the Balochistan National Party (BNP). On the other hand, Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) co-chairman Asif Ali Zardari, being the guarantor in the ruling alliance, vowed to fulfil his commitments with coalition parties on the distribution of ministries.

Marriyum Aurangzeb, who is likely to become information minister, said a marathon meeting of a joint committee of the alliance on forming the cabinet took place on Sunday in which grievances of parties over the distribution of portfolios and key positions were resolved. She had said the PML-N would bag the ministries of defence, finance, interior, law and justice, railways, information, energy, planning, communication, etc.

Earlier, PML-N leader Rana Sanaullah said that a joint committee of all allied parties in the government had finalised the formation of the new cabinet in which almost all parties had been accommodated. He said that the ministry of foreign affairs will most likely be handed over to the PPP, while the party’s chairman Bilawal Bhutto-Zardari is deliberating over the decision to head the ministry, Geo News reported.

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