Foreign Minister Ishaq Dar has been appointed as the Deputy Prime Minister of Pakistan, according to a notification issued by the Cabinet Division. Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif made the appointment “with immediate effect and until further orders.”
This move marks the first appointment to the position of Deputy Prime Minister since Chaudhry Pervez Elahi, of the PML-Q, held the role in June 2012.
Dar brings extensive experience to the position, having served in various ministerial roles in previous governments. He served as the federal minister for commerce and investment in the 1997-99 government of Nawaz Sharif and held the position of federal minister for finance, economic affairs, revenue, and statistics twice, in 1998-99 and 2008.
Dar’s career also includes serving as minister of state/chief executive of the Pakistan Investment Board (PIB) from 1992 to 1993 and as president of the Lahore Chamber of Commerce and Industry.
While he briefly assumed the duties of federal finance minister in 2008, Dar resigned from the position after the PML-N decided to part ways with the PPP-led coalition government at the center. He later served as the finance minister in Prime Minister Nawaz’s government in 2013.
In recent years, Dar was reappointed as the finance minister of Pakistan from September 2022 until the end of the coalition government’s tenure in August 2023. Despite his long-standing expertise in finance, Dar was unexpectedly appointed as the minister of foreign affairs in PM Shehbaz’s new cabinet in March of this year, with the finance portfolio going to Muhammad Aurangzeb.