Person · three-term Prime Minister · Pakistan
Nawaz Sharif
Also known as Mian Nawaz Sharif
Mian Muhammad Nawaz Sharif (born 25 December 1949) was Prime Minister of Pakistan three times — 1990-93, 1997-99 and 2013-17 — the only person to hold that office for three terms, each ended non-constitutionally (presidential dismissal, military coup, Supreme Court disqualification). A Lahore industrialist of the Ittefaq Group turned Punjab politician under General Zia, he founded the Pakistan Muslim League (N) in 1993. On 21 February 1999 he received Indian Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee at Wagah on the inaugural Delhi-Lahore bus, co-signed the Lahore Declaration committing both countries to peaceful dispute resolution and nuclear restraint, and was overthrown in General Pervez Musharraf's coup on 12 October 1999 after dismissing him over the Kargil debacle. Thrice deposed, thrice exiled, thrice returned — the longest Pakistani political career of its generation.
- Date
- 1949–None
- Function
- Authority & administration
- Patron dynasty
- Government of Pakistan
- Confidence
- Established / referenced
Connections (2)
- Publicly debated withAtal Bihari Vajpayee
Atal Bihari Vajpayee travelled to Lahore on the inaugural Delhi-Lahore 'Sada-e-Sarhad' bus on 20 February 1999 and was received by Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif at Wagah. The two signed the Lahore Declaration on 21 February 1999, committing India and Pakistan to peaceful dispute resolution and nuclear-restraint confidence-building measures, and Vajpayee visited the Minar-e-Pakistan at Lahore — a symbolic Indian endorsement of Pakistan's existence. Three months later the Pakistan army's Kargil incursion of May 1999 collapsed the entire opening; Sharif was overthrown in Musharraf's October 1999 coup. The bus service itself survived, suspended several times since, running most recently in 2019.
- Life routeAttari
Nawaz Sharif crossed to Attari in 1999 to receive the Vajpayee bus delegation and later for the SAARC exchanges around the Lahore Declaration — the one head-of-government crossing in the Attari-Wagah corridor's post-Partition history.
Sources
Standard biography.
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