Parvez Elahi

Chaudhry Parvez Elahi Warraich commonly referred to as Pervaiz Elahi (Urdu, ; born 1 November 1945) is a Pakistani politician who is the former Chief Minister of Punjab. He was a member of the Provincial Assembly of the Punjab from August 2018 till January 2023, when he, as chief minister, dissolved the assembly. In 2023, he left the Pakistan Muslim League (Q) (PML(Q)) and joined Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) along with his son, Moonis Elahi, and 10 other former PML(Q) MPAs over political rifts with the party president and cousin, Chaudhry Shujaat Hussain. He was appointed president of the PTI. He was the former president of the Punjab Division of the PML(Q).

He served as the First Deputy Prime Minister of Pakistan in 2013. After a successful campaign in the 2002 general elections, he became the Chief Minister of Punjab and held this position until 2007. In 2008, he briefly served as the leader of the opposition in the National Assembly of Pakistan. He remained a member of the National Assembly for two terms, from 2008 to May 2018. He has also been the Speaker of the Provincial Assembly of Punjab from 2018 to 2022. In a major development in late February 2023, Parvez Elahi announced joining Imran Khan-led party along with 10 of his party's former MPAs. On 7 March 2023, Parvez Elahi was appointed as President of the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf.

Early life and education
Chaudhry Parvez Elahi was born 1 November 1945 in Gujrat, Punjab to industrialist Chaudhry Manzoor Elahi. He hails from a family of politicians and industrialists of Gujrat. They belong to a Punjabi Jat family of the Warraich clan.

His father Chaudhry Manzoor was non-political, unlike his younger brother Chaudhry Zahoor, concentrating on his business in the textile industry, being active in Ludhiana and then Amritsar after earning his B.Sc. Engineering but having to move back to his native village of Natt in Gujrat due to the 1947 partition. He had two daughters and three sons: Parvez, Javed, who looked after the family business, and Sabahat, who has resided in Thailand, being engaged in carpet manufacturing. Chaudhry Manzoor died in 2005, at the age of 90.

Parvez received his early education from Forman Christian College, Lahore until 1967 and later attended Watford College of Technology from where he received his Diploma in Industrial Management.

Parvez is a cousin of former Prime Minister of Pakistan Chaudhry Shujaat Hussain and is married to his sister, with whom he has two sons, Moonis Elahi and Rasikh Elahi. While his younger son Moonis is also a well known politician, his elder son Rasikh has been described as “a Sufi religious scholar, who avoids politics and public appearances.”

His brother-in-law Ashraf Marth, who served as the SSP Gujranwala, was assassinated in 1997 by Lashkar-e-Jhangvi militants.

Outside Chaudhry Shujaat, his brothers and their sons, Parvez’s other relatives in politics include Chaudhry Tajamal Hussain, the cousin of his father who has been an MNA, and whose own son Chaudhry Mubashar Hussain is a politician as well.

Early political career: Nawaz-Benazir conundrum (1985-1999)
Parvez began his political career after being elected as the chairman of the district council of Gujrat for four years in 1983. He served as Provincial Minister for Local Government and Rural Development for eight years from 1985 to 1993. He was elected as a member of the Provincial Assembly of Punjab for the first time in 1985, again in 1988, 1990, and 1993. He also served as the acting leader of the opposition in the Provincial Assembly of Punjab from 1993

During the late 1980s and 1990s Pakistani politics was dominated by two movements, the conservative, right-wing Islamic Jamhoori Ittehad (IJI) led by Nawaz Sharif, and the more left-wing Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) led by Benazir Bhutto. Parvez Elahi and the Chaudhry family followed a more traditionalist and conservative outlook, therefore Parvez and Shujaat Hussain sided with Nawaz Sharif and both joined the Islami Jamhoori Ittehad from 1985 to 1993, until joining the IJI’s successor, the PML-N.

Several cases were registered against Pervaiz during Benazir Bhutto's government in 1993-1996 and he was sent to Adiala Jail where he spent several months. He enjoyed the services of Mentorship of Barrister Ijaz Hussain Batalvi and his legal team including M.A. Zafar, Nawaz Bhatti and Akhtar Aly Kureshy Advocates. He also appointed Akhtar Aly Kureshy as legal Advisor to Provincial Assembly of the Punjab when he was Speaker Punjab Assembly.

It was reported that Nawaz Sharif had promised Parvez that if PML-N won the 1997 Pakistani general election, Pervaiz would be made the chief minister of Punjab. However, when PML-N won the 1997 general elections, Nawaz appointed his brother Shahbaz Sharif as the Chief Minister of Punjab. To avoid the impression that Pervaiz was unhappy with this decision of Nawaz Sharif, Pervaiz supported Shahbaz Sharif for the position of Chief Minister, however, he decided not to join the provincial cabinet of Shahbaz Sharif. He was re-elected as a member of the Provincial Assembly of Punjab for the fifth time in 1997 and was elected as the speaker of Provincial Assembly of Punjab   in 1997 where he remained until June 2001.

Alliance with Musharraf, Rise of the PML-Q (1999-2018)
Following the 1999 military coup, he was detained by the National Accountability Bureau on corruption charges. The charges were dropped following an agreement he made to quit the Pakistan Muslim League (N), whose part he had been until the ouster of the PML-N government, and assist President Pervez Musharraf in building PML-Q.

He along with his cousin Shujaat and other dissidents left PML-N to form their own party, PML-Q. He was re-elected as a member of the Provincial Assembly of Punjab for the sixth time in the 2002 Pakistani general election. Following the elections, Pervaiz was elected as the chief minister of Punjab for the first time, an office he served from October 2002 until October 2007.

Chief ministership
As Chief Minister of Punjab, Parvez initiated several initiatives to develop the province, including the Multan Institute of Cardiology, which Elahi founded and worked to establish. Some of his most successful projects include the Rescue 1122 helpline system, the University of Gujrat and several other dam and infrastructural projects that were founded in his tenure. He has received appraisal for his work as Chief Minister.

Post-Chief ministership
In the 2008 Pakistani general election, Pervaiz was elected as a member of the National Assembly of Pakistan for the first time and as a member of the Provincial Assembly of Punjab for the seventh time. The PML-Q nominated Pervaiz as its candidate for the post of prime minister of Pakistan following the 2008 general elections. Following the election, he was made the Leader of the Opposition in the National Assembly, however he quit this post later that year. He was made Federal Minister for Defence Production and Industries in the Yousuf Raza Gilani cabinet.

In 2011, a ceremonial post was created to appoint Parvez as the first deputy prime minister of Pakistan, having no powers even in the absence of the prime minister of Pakistan. In the 2013 Pakistani general election, Pervaiz contested and won election from NA-105, a National Assembly constituency in Gujrat defeating candidates of PPP and PML-N.

He was re-elected to the National Assembly as a candidate of PML-Q from NA-65 (Chakwal-II) and NA-69 (Gujrat-II) in the 2018 Pakistani general election. In the same election, he was re-elected to the Provincial Assembly of Punjab as a candidate of PML-Q from PP-30 (Gujrat-III). Following his successful election, he abandoned his National Assembly seats in favor of his provincial assembly seat. He was named by Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) and PML-Q as their joint candidate for the office of Speaker of the Provincial Assembly of Punjab. On 16 August 2018, he was elected as Speaker of the Punjab Assembly. He received 201 votes against his opponent Muhammad Iqbal Gujjar who secured 147 votes.

Alliance with Imran Khan and the PTI (2018-Present)
On 19 August 2018, he became the acting governor of Punjab following the resignation of Rafique Rajwana. In March 2022, Imran Khan nominated Parvez Elahi as a candidate for the post of Chief Minister of Punjab after the incumbent Usman Buzdar resigned. After a four-month long constitutional crisis, he took oath as the 18th Chief Minister of Punjab on 27 July. On 22 December, the Governor of Punjab, Balighur Rehman, denotified Elahi from his position, citing his failure to take a vote of confidence from the Provincial Assembly, which the Governor had requested, as the reason for the denotification. However, Elahi was restored by the Lahore High Court on 23 December 2022.

On 12 January 2023, after securing victory in a vote of confidence the night before, Parvez sent a letter to Governor Balighur-Rehman, advising him to dissolve the Provincial Assembly. On 22 January, he was replaced as Chief Minister by Mohsin Raza Naqvi, who was appointed by the Election Commission of Pakistan to lead a caretaker government. He was stated to be in the run for a seat in the Punjab Assembly from PP-34 Gujrat-VII as a candidate of the PTI in the next Punjab provincial election.

President of the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf
In June 2023, Elahi was arrested on charges of illegally appointing officers in the Punjab Assembly when he was Chief Minister and detained in Rawalpindi. Elahi denied the charges, calling it political persecution. He was released on bail in May 2024.

Publications

 * Punjab's Vision 2020: Pre Budget Policy Address, Government of the Punjab, 2004, 55 p.