Shahid Khaqan Abbasi (born 27 December 1958) is a Pakistani politician and businessman who served as the prime minister of Pakistan from August 2017 to May 2018. He also currently leads Awaam Pakistan (AP) as its chairman. Abbasi was the senior vice president of the Pakistan Muslim League-N (PML-N), and had been the secretary-general of the Pakistan Democratic Movement (PDM), an anti-PTI coalition of political parties in Pakistan. He had been a Member of the National Assembly of Pakistan from October 2018 to August 2023 and previously served as a member of the National Assembly for 8 non-consecutive terms since 1988.
Abbasi started his career after the death of his father in 1988, and since then he has been elected a Member of the National Assembly six times for Constituency NA-50 (Rawalpindi). After the PML-N victory in the 1997 general election, he served as Chairman of Pakistan International Airlines until the 1999 Pakistani coup d'état. After the formation of a temporary coalition government following the 2008 general election, he was briefly the Minister for Commerce in the Gillani ministry. After the 2013 general election, he became the Minister for Petroleum and Natural Resources in the third Sharif ministry, where he served from 2013 until the disqualification of Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif after the Panama Papers case decision in July 2017. He was elected as 21st Prime Minister of Pakistan by the National Assembly in August 2017.
Early life and education Abbasi was born on 27 December 1958 in Dewal village, Murree District, Punjab. He attended Lawrence College in Murree. In 1978, he attended the University of California, Los Angeles, where he received a bachelor's degree in electrical engineering. Following this, he began a career as an electrical engineer. In 1985, he attended George Washington University, where he gained a master's degree in electrical engineering.
After graduating from George Washington University, Abbasi became a professional electrical engineer. He worked in the United States during the 1980s before moving to Saudi Arabia, where he worked on energy projects in the oil and gas industry.
Political career 1988–97 Abbasi's political career began after the death of his father Khaqan Abbasi in 1988. In May 1988, President Muhammad Zia-ul-Haq sacked the government of his handpicked prime minister, Muhammad Khan Junejo, and prematurely dissolved the National Assembly. Consequently, new parliamentary elections were called for 16 November 1988. Abbasi ran for the National Assembly seat from Constituency NA-36 (Rawalpindi-I), which had been held by his father until his death. Abassi was elected with 47,295 votes as an independent candidate. He acquired Rawalpindi's National Assembly seat for the first time at the age of 30 by defeating both Raja Zafar ul Haq, a candidate of Islami Jamhoori Ittehad (IJI), and Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) candidate Raja Muhammad Anwar by a narrow margin. After winning the election he joined the IJI, which was newly founded in September 1988 by then Director-General of Inter-Services Intelligence to counter the PPP. His tenure as a Member of the National Assembly terminated after the National Assembly was dissolved prematurely in August 1990 following the dismissal of the government of Benazir Bhutto by President Ghulam Ishaq Khan.
New parliamentary elections were called for 24 October 1990. Abbasi ran for a National Assembly seat as a candidate of IJI and was successfully re-elected from Constituency NA-36 (Rawalpindi-I). He received 80,305 votes against 54,011 votes for PPP candidate Raja Muhammad Anwar. Upon the victory of IJI in the 1990 national election, he was made Federal Parliamentary Secretary for Defence, a post he retained until the dissolution of the National Assembly in April 1993 with the dismissal of the Nawaz Sharif government by then President Ghulam Ishaq Khan.
New snap elections were called for 6 October 1993. Abbasi ran for a National Assembly seat as a candidate of the Pakistan Muslim League (N) (PML-N) and was re-elected for the third time from Constituency NA-36 (Rawalpindi-I). He secured 76,596 votes against the PPP candidate, retired Colonel Habib Khan, who received 45,173 votes. As a Member of the National Assembly, he performed his duties as the chairman of the Standing Committee of the National Assembly on Defence. His tenure was terminated with the dissolution of the National Assembly in 1996 following the dismissal of the Benazir Bhutto government by President Farooq Leghari.
New parliamentary elections were called for 3 February 1997, and Abbasi successfully retained his National Assembly seat as a candidate of the PML-N from Constituency NA-36 (Rawalpindi-I) for the fourth time. He defeated Pakistan Muslim League (J) candidate Babar Awan and independent candidate Javed Iqbal Satti by securing 65,194 votes. PML-N won a clear majority in the National Assembly for the first time. That same year, he was appointed as the chairman of Pakistan International Airlines (PIA) by Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif. During his two years in this office, he is credited with implementing long-term and comprehensive reforms and getting the airline out of debt. His tenure as the Chairman of PIA was terminated following the 1999 Pakistani coup d'état, during which then-Chief of Army Staff General Pervez Musharraf overthrew Sharif and his existing elected government. Abbasi's tenure as a Member of the National Assembly was also terminated with the dissolution of the assembly. Abbasi, along with Sharif, was named in the infamous plane hijacking case. Charges were levelled against him for denying the landing of Musharraf's PIA plane at Karachi's Jinnah International Airport on its way back from Sri Lanka on 12 October 1999, and he was held responsible for conspiring with Sharif to kill Musharraf. He was forced to provide a testimonial statement against Sharif for the hijacking case, but he refused to release the statement. He was also pressured by the Pakistan Army to switch allegiance from Sharif, but he refused. He remained in jail for two years before his acquittal by the court in 2001. By then, Sharif had gone into exile in Saudi Arabia. In a 2008 interview, Abbasi claimed that Musharraf himself took control of the plane in 1999. As chairman of PIA, he was accused of 11 million in corruption in the purchase of 200 computers for the airline, however he was acquitted of this in 2008.
Fifth and sixth term: 2002–13 General elections were held on 10 October 2002 under Musharraf. Abbasi was the PML-N candidate for the Constituency NA-50 (Rawalpindi) seat, but lost to PPP candidate Ghulam Murtaza Satti with 63,797 votes (37.21%) to 74,259 (43.31%). Abbasi indicated that the exile of Sharif disappointed the people, due to which PML-N only won 19 out of 342 seats in the National Assembly. People from his constituency claim he contested the election unwillingly, explaining why he lost it. After his defeat, he distanced himself from politics to focus on Airblue Limited, which he founded in 2003. He served as its first chairman until 2007 and then went on to become its chief operating officer.
After Sharif's return to Pakistan from exile in 2007, Abbasi joined him and ran for a seat in the National Assembly in the 18 February 2008 general election as a candidate of the PML-N, and was successfully re-elected for the fifth time with 99,987 votes from Constituency NA-50 (Rawalpindi) by defeating PPP candidate Ghulam Murtaza Satti who secured 77,978 votes. The election resulted in a hung parliament where PPP had secured the most seats in the National Assembly and PML-N the second most. After the formation of a coalition government between PPP and PML-N with Yousaf Raza Gillani as prime minister, Abbasi was inducted into the federal cabinet of Gillani with the status of a federal minister in March 2008 and was appointed as the Minister for Commerce. However, he resigned as Minister for Commerce after the PML-N left the PPP-led coalition government in May 2008 to lead the movement to impeach Pervez Musharraf and to restore the judiciary after the coalition failed to restore the judiciary, as agreed between PML-N and PPP in the Bhurban Accord. Abbasi was reported to have held the cabinet portfolio of Defence Production during his short-lived tenure as Commerce Minister, a claim later proved to be untrue.
As Minister for Petroleum After the completion of a five-year PPP government, an election was scheduled for 11 May 2013. Abbasi ran for a seat in the National Assembly as a candidate of the PML-N and successfully retained his seat from Constituency NA-50 (Rawalpindi) for the sixth time with 134,439 votes by defeating PPP candidate Ghulam Murtaza Satti. The Express Tribune noted PML-N won the seat despite unsatisfactory performance in the constituency as Nisar Ali Khan had moved development projects allotted for Abbasi's constituency to his own constituency. Upon the victory of PML-N in the 2013 national election, he was inducted into the federal cabinet as the Minister for Petroleum and Natural Resources and was given the task of ending the Pakistan's electricity crisis. As Minister for Petroleum, he proposed to ban the usage of oil and coal-powered energy generation plants terming them expensive, and instead advocated and pushed for the liquefied natural gas (LNG) powered electricity production saying that LNG was more cheaper and would save the government billions of dollars. He claimed the government could save US$1 billion annually if 1,800MW of diesel-powered energy plants in the country were run on LNG and furnace-oil based plants would save US$600 million. In February 2016, Abbasi in his capacity as Minister for Petroleum signed US$16 billion agreement with QatarEnergy LNG for purchasing 3.75 million metric tons of LNG annually for a period of 15 years, to generate 2,000 MW of electricity and to meet 20% gas requirements of Pakistan where demand for natural gas was 8,000 MMFCD against a supply of 4,000 MMFCD. The deal which made to overcome the country's swelling power crisis was referred to as Pakistan's biggest commercial transaction ever. After the LNG contract received criticism from the opposition parties over price issue and for being non-transparent, Abbasi defended the agreement with Qatar saying Pakistan has negotiated cheapest price with Qatar. He said the contract which took 14 months of negotiation with the government of Qatar was made under his supervision and he is responsible for it.
In July 2015, Abbasi was accused of issuing illegal contracts worth 220 billion between the period of 2013 and 2015 for the import and distribution of LNG without a proper bidding process, after which the National Accountability Bureau registered a case and began an investigation. He denied the corruption allegations. The case was closed in December 2016 after it was found that all rules were followed during procurement and the bidding process to award the contract was transparent. The Express Tribune described the LNG project as successful and one of the cheapest regasifications in the world. Abbasi ceased to hold the ministerial office of Petroleum and Natural Resources on 28 July 2017 when the cabinet of Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif was disbanded following his disqualification by the Supreme Court of Pakistan in the Panama Papers case decision. To minimise the shortage of gas, and to overcome the persistent power crises in the country, Abbasi's proposal to bring the LNG to Pakistan as a source of power generation was lauded and praised. According to BBC Urdu, Abbasi had not become a part of any major political or financial controversy throughout his time in a ministerial office which is considered a high-profile cabinet slot.
Premiership (2017–2018)
Taking office