Nawaz Sharif
Nawaz Sharif was elected prime minister of Pakistan three times and never once finished a term. His family owned steel mills in Lahore that Zulfikar Ali Bhutto nationalised, which is how a businessman became a politician. He was brought forward by the military government of the 1980s as a counterweight to the Bhuttos, and he and Benazir Bhutto then alternated in office for a decade. His first term ended when the president dissolved the assembly in 1993; the Supreme Court reinstated him and the army chief made both men resign. His second term was the largest majority in Pakistani history and the most consequential. India tested nuclear devices in May 1998 and Sharif authorised six of his own at Chagai seventeen days later, against American offers of aid to hold back. He signed a declaration with Vajpayee at Lahore in February 1999 and discovered months later that his army had occupied the heights above Kargil, a war he ended by flying to Washington and asking for a withdrawal. In October 1999 he tried to replace the army chief while the man was in the air returning from Sri Lanka and had the aircraft refused permission to land. The corps commanders took the government instead. Sharif was convicted of hijacking, sentenced to life, and exiled to Saudi Arabia. He returned, won a third term in 2013, and was disqualified for life in 2017 over an undeclared salary uncovered in the Panama Papers. He was jailed, left for London on medical grounds, and came back in 2023 with the disqualification lifted and his brother in office. No elected prime minister in Pakistan's history has completed a full term.
- Lived: 1949 CE – ?
- Nationality: Pakistani
- Roles: head_of_state, politician
