Senior PML-N leader and former petroleum minister Shahid Khaqan Abbasi will run the PML-N government as interim prime minister of Pakistan.
This is until Nawaz Sharif's brother Shahbaz is elected as member of parliament, according to Pakistan media reports.
The Supreme Court Friday disqualified 67-year-old Sharif for dishonesty and ruled that corruption cases be filed against him and his children over the Panama Papers scandal.
The investigation was instrumental in forcing the embattled leader out of office.
Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) has decided to appoint Shahbaz Sharif as prime minister in an informal meeting.
Former petroleum minister Abbasi will be appointed as interim prime minister to run the country until Shahbaz is elected as member of parliament.
The final announcement will be made by Nawaz Sharif in the formal parliamentary party meeting of PML-N which is taking place in Islamabad a day after he was disqualified by the Supreme Court.
Party sources had earlier said that Sharif proposed the name of his younger brother Shahbaz.
But Shahbaz, 65, cannot immediately replace his brother as he is not an MP. In order to become the prime minister, he would have to be elected first.
Hence, Abbasi has been named as interim prime minister who will resign once Shahbaz is elected.
Pakistan has seen such arrangements in the past too. During former military dictator General Pervez Musharraf’s time, politician Chaudhry Shujaat Hussain was appointed as an interim prime minister until Shaukat Aziz, who was nominated by Musharraf, got elected by the ruling Pakistan Muslim League Quaid-e-Azam (PMLQ).
Shahbaz Sharif is the son of late Mian Muhammad Sharif and brother of Nawaz Sharif.
Currently, Shahbaz is the chief minister of Pakistan's most populous province, Punjab.
He began his political career as a member of the Punjab Assembly in 1988.
Thereafter, Shahbaz became the opposition leader of Punjab Assembly in 1993.
Earlier, from 1997 to 1999, Shehbaz had held the position of Punjab chief minister.
However, he spent years of self-exile in Saudi Arabia, before returning to Pakistan in 2007.
Along with Shahbaz Sharif, Khawaja Asif, Sardar Ayaz Sadiq, Ahsan Iqbal, and Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan were also in contention to replace Nawaz Sharif.
Nawaz Sharif's decision to step down brought an unceremonious end to his term in power, roughly a year before the scheduled General Election.
Had Nawaz Sharif stayed in power till the scheduled elections, he would have become the first Prime Minister of Pakistan to complete a full five-year term.
