Nawaz Sharif re-elected as Pakistan's ruling party chief

Former Pakistani Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif was re-elected as head of the ruling party Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) on Tuesday, a day after the country's president approved a parliamentary bill to reform the electoral policy.

Former Pakistani Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif addresses his Pakistan Muslim League supporters during a party general council meeting in Islamabad, Pakistan, Tuesday, Oct. 3, 2017. [Photo: VCG]

Sharif was elected unopposed as no other party member submitted nomination papers to contest for the position.

The party's election commissioner Chaudhry Jaffar Iqbal formally announced the former prime minister as the party president during a PML-N general council meeting, attended by over 500 law makers from both provincial and national assembly.

The country's election commission will formally announce Sharif as the party president later.

Following his disqualification as the prime minister of the country in a corruption case by the Supreme Court of Pakistan in July this year, Sharif had also stepped down as the party's chief because the country's then electoral laws did not allow a disqualified person to head any political party.

However, the country's National Assembly (the lower house) passed a bill on Monday reforming the clause and allowing Sharif to become the chief of his own party.

According to the freshly incorporated clause, every citizen of Pakistan, who is not working as a government employee, has the right to form or be a member of a political party.

The country's two opposition parties jointly filed an application in the Sindh High Court against the election reforms. They requested the court to declare the electoral reforms bill as illegal and unconstitutional.