Bilawal-Shahbaz will meet, will the deadlock over government formation end?

Pakistan’s two main parties are scheduled to meet on Monday to resolve differences over forming a minority coalition government after inconclusive elections. a top party official said, underscoring its political and economic instability. Analysts say the nuclear-armed nation of 241 million, which is struggling with an economic crisis amid slow growth and record inflation as well as rising terrorist violence, needs a stable government with the authority to make tough decisions.

Monday’s talks will be the fifth such round after former Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif was nominated by his Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) party to lead the country again. Senator Ishaq Dar of Sharif’s party, who is leading the talks, said in a statement posted on social media platform X that the two parties have not yet agreed on the final points. He said that talks are going on on various proposals for power-sharing. Pakistan People’s Party (PPP), the party of former foreign minister Bilawal Bhutto Zardari, has announced conditional support to PML-N, saying it will vote for Sharif to form the government, but will not take a cabinet post. “I can confirm that it has been decided in principle that the political parties will form a coalition government,” Dar told domestic broadcaster Geo TV.

Sharif, 72, who was prime minister of the South Asian country for 16 months until August, has been named by his elder brother Nawaz Sharif, who heads the PML-N, as the alliance’s candidate to become the next prime minister. Pakistan narrowly avoided a sovereign default last summer with $3 billion in aid from the International Monetary Fund, but the lender’s support is set to expire in March, which would then require a new, expanded program. It will be important for the new government to negotiate a new program more quickly.