Shehbaz Sharif, Omar Ayub nominated for Pakistan PM by competing sides

Both Pakistan Muslim-League-Nawaz (PML-N) and Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) have managed to nominate their own candidates as the next prime minister after the country's contested Feb 8 general election.

PTI has nominated party Secretary General Omar Ayub as its candidate for the prime minister position, according to PTI sources, after Shehbaz Sharif won support of PML-N and its allied parties.

Pakistan's former National Assembly speaker Asad Qaiser made the PTI announcement on Thursday after meeting up with the former prime minister Imran Khan, who is the PTI founder, but remains in jail.

"Omar Ayub will be our candidate for the prime minister election, he has been nominated by Imran Khan," said Qaiser told the press.

On Tuesday, in a post on social media site X, formerly known as Twitter, Pakistan Muslim-League-Nawaz (PML-N) spokesperson Marriyum Aurangzeb said PML-N leader and three-time prime minister Nawaz Sharif had nominated his brother, former prime minister Shehbaz Sharif, for the slot of lead the country's next Cabinet.

The major parties have been in busy negotiations to form the next government since the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) on Feb 11 announced the complete results of the country's General Election 2024.

The commission announced that for the National Assembly or the lower house of the country's parliament, independent candidates got 101 seats, including 92 now backed by the PTI.

The PML-N of former prime minister Nawaz Sharif got 75 seats, the Pakistan Peoples Party Parliamentarians of former foreign minister Bilawal Bhutto Zardari got 54 seats. The two parties have been in discussions of a coalition federal government.