ISLAMABAD: Newly-elected Prime Minister Shahid Khaqan Abbasi?s federal cabinet will be sworn in today.

Sources said a ceremony will be held at the President House at 5:30pm where members of the new cabinet will take the oath. President Mamnoon Hussain will administer the oath.

Presidency 

The federal cabinet is expected to retain a majority of the members, on the same posts, that were part of Nawaz Sharif?s cabinet. Abbasi, too, was serving as the petroleum minister in Sharif?s cabinet till last Friday.

However, sources claimed that disgruntled Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz senior figure Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan will not be a part of the new cabinet. Nisar was the interior minister in the previous cabinet.

Shahid Khaqan Abbasi sworn in as 18th prime minister

Abbasi swept the election for prime minister with a majority vote earlier today

Consultations over the new cabinet are under way, sources informed further.

Abbasi was sworn in as the prime minister at an oath-taking ceremony held at the Presidency on Tuesday night.

Abbasi was elected Leader of the House on Tuesday following the disqualification of Nawaz Sharif by the Supreme Court last week. Abbasi received 221 votes out of the total 339 in the National Assembly.

PM Nawaz Sharif's cabinet taking oath in June 2013. The present PM, Abbasi, is second from left. Photo: File 

 

The Supreme Court, in its landmark ruling in the Panama Papers case on July 28, ruled that the prime minister failed to disclose his un-withdrawn receivables constituting assets from UAE-based Capital FZE in his nomination papers for the 2013 elections, saying that this meant he was not 'honest' and 'truthful', as per the Constitution.

When Sharif became the premier following the PML-N?s resounding victory in the 2013 polls, his cabinet included 16 federal ministers and nine ministers of state.