Maryam Nawaz, the daughter of three-time former Pakistani Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, has been elected the chief minister of the key province of Punjab – the country’s first woman to hold the post.

Maryam’s Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PMLN) and its allies on Monday received 220 votes in the 371-member Punjab Assembly in an election boycotted by the opposition Sunni Ittehad Council party, backed by jailed former Prime Minister Imran Khan.

Khan alleges the February 8 parliamentary and provincial elections were rigged – an allegation denied by the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP).

“I am disappointed the opposition is not here to be part of this democratic process,” Maryam, 50, said on the opposition’s boycott of her election.

Political dynasty

Maryam is the fourth member of her family to become Punjab chief minister after her father Nawaz Sharif, his brother Shehbaz, and Shehbaz’s son Hamza who held the post for a few months last year.

hehbaz could return as prime minister for a second term when the parliament meets later this week.

Born in 1973, Maryam is the eldest among four siblings and was not into politics until 2013 when Nawaz became the prime minister for the third time. Soon, she emerged as the family’s apparent political heir while her brothers handled the business.

After Nawaz was disqualified from the post of the prime minister in 2017 for lying in his assets declarations before the ECP, Maryam assumed a more prominent role in the party.

However, days before the 2018 election, which she planned to contest, a court in capital Islamabad convicted her of corruption, along with her father and her husband. The conviction disqualified her from contesting elections for a decade.

A year later, she was relieved in the case while Nawaz, suffering ill health, went into self-imposed exile in the United Kingdom, from where he returned in October last year.