 After a controversial and contentious election process, Pakistan has a new government. Former Prime Minister Shahbaz Sharif has once again assumed office. He has an eight-party coalition in a parliament where the single largest party that's a former PTI is in the opposition. Now Sharif has returned to power at a very difficult time. The credibility of his government is extremely low due to allegations of rigging of the February elections. The country's economy is in doldrums and the government has little space to maneuver. We go to Abdul for the latest chapter in Pakistan's very difficult journey. Abdul, thank you so much for joining us. So finally a government in Pakistan but not the most pleasant to circumstances for the government or the country. Could you maybe take us to the last part of the government formation? What have been the controversies in recent times? Well Prashant, after the agreement which was signed between, we can say which was agreed between the PPP and PML and Nawaz Sharif, these parties came together along with other smaller parties to basically claim the majority and on Sunday there was a voting finally in the newly elected National Assembly in which Shahbaz Sharif got around 201 votes in the assembly which has 336 seats. So it's almost a well comfortable majority. His rival, Omar, which was basically kind of put as a candidate, as a prime minister candidate by the PTI which is now standing in the parliament as Sunni Tehath council, got only 92 votes which is exactly the number of seats which Sunni Tehath council or PTI has at this moment in the National Assembly. So you can say that by and large the legislatures stuck to their party line and they voted accordingly. Meanwhile there is one more thing which has interesting happened that all the reserve seats, there are around 17 reserve seats, 64 women and 10 for the minorities in the National Assembly were allotted to PML and PPP and other parties and none of them were allotted to the Sunni Tehath council. ECB in its decision, election commission of Pakistan, its decision on Monday said that Sunni Tehath council is not eligible for those seats because it did not submit its name prior to the election, the candidates list prior to the election as it is mandated and it has some legal issues which cannot be resolved at this moment. So of course this has been criticized by the opposition and by the legal fraternity in the country but it seems that this is going to be the status quo at this moment given the fact that Pakistan is not still in the jail and there is no strong leadership of PTI which is there in the public at this moment despite the fact that PTI has given nationwide call for protest. It seems that this is Sabha Sharif is going to kind of form, he has already prime minister but his cabinet is just to be formed. So yeah, this is what happened since last we talked about Pakistan. Right, Abba also so what are the challenges right now confronting the government of Sabha Sharif one second coming back to power but the situation is quite grim for the country? Well the issues are quite stark of course everyone knows about the Pakistan's economy being the worst at this moment in its history and it is seeking yet another loan from the IMF the last installment of the previous three billion dollar loan was of course given few days back but that is not enough or Pakistan apparently for Pakistan to kind of come back and kind of revive its economy and Sabha Sharif while taking charge as prime minister announced that his government will seek yet another loan. That would mean that the suffering of the Pakistanis will be even more in the coming days because the conditionalities of the IMF loan we all know about the last loan itself created a lot of problems of subsidies being withdrawn, social security being withdrawn and the prices of the essential commodities going high. So it seems that the economic on the economic front which is the most important problem any Pakistani government faces and Sabha Sharif will face is going there is no hope at this moment given the fact that Sabha Sharif was the prime was prime minister when Pakistan economy was basically had these problems in the initial age so it seems that this is going to be one major challenge. Other of course is security on the front security front there is widespread you can say violence or all across the country particularly in provinces like Balochistan and in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa which is going to be intensified it seems given the fact that there is no concrete measure as if now announced there are another set of issues which is see Pakistan is yet to emerge from the impact of the floods it suffered in a few years back there are there is another smaller but there is there are reports coming that there is a heavy rain in Balochistan and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and there are local floods in that reason and these are the reasons which are all already most affected because of the violence because of the back economic condition and so on and so forth. So this is one but the most pressing issue at this moment would be the political issue how to resolve this the crisis of legitimacy which the current Shabasafi government is facing not only because of the allegations made by PTI and other smaller opposition parties of the elections being rigged but also because of the instability which is there all across the country at this moment primarily because of the lack of confidence in the ruling establishment in the and the way it seems it has become a widespread knowledge that the Pakistan army has tightly taken control over both the elections and the formation of new government and that would create a lot of problems for Pakistan in the coming days and how Shabasafi government is dealing with it how it addresses it is to be seen. Thank you so much Abdul for that update. Donald Trump and Joe Biden have moved closer to clinching the nominations for their parties after the super Tuesday round of primaries in multiple states. Trump and Biden one hands down with Trump emerging the victor or leading in all states except Vermont which was won by his last remaining opponent Nikki Haley. Biden too has pretty much wrapped up the democratic race let's go to Anish to see what the results say and what lies ahead. Anish it is a bit of a foregone conclusion but nonetheless could you maybe take us through what very broadly the results of the super Tuesday primaries are of course the final results are not entirely out yet but nonetheless the trends are pretty clear. Yeah so what we're looking at is pretty much a sweep by Donald Trump in almost all the states except for Vermont. The rest of the states that have gone into the Republican primaries at least has been swept by Trump and even in the democratic camp where there was the only contest is basically Williamson. Marianne Williamson pretty much was also swept over but in both cases what we're looking at is a very clear indication that the next election is going to be again a Trump versus Biden election and you know that is going to have its own set of problems. We can get into that a little shortly but there are some significant trends here especially in the democratic camp primarily because we also talked about in our copies and our articles before about how a large growing number of Democrats are now voting undecided or you know none of the above. This in the Republican camp usually only happened in favor of Trump wherever he was you know not allowed to stand on the primary ballot. Obviously that has been taken out now he could actually stand for anywhere but in the case of the Democratic Party this clearly shows a disillusionment against Biden growing an amount of disillusionment and that is something that cannot be wished away at this point. We are still at early results but the numbers are still quite large in some states the Democrats are pulling 19% for undecided or you know no preference and that is that's a huge number of Democratic voters card holding members refusing to support the president even if effectively he's the only one on the ballot so that clearly shows that there is a significant disillusionment within the Democratic Party against President Biden and this has a large part to do with obviously his recent foreign you know foreign affairs overtures but also you know his failure at the domestic front on many instances. In another way if you look at it this is this is no longer the polarizing election that we're looking at because the fact that a large number of people are ready to you know vote whatever third party comes to mind if there is a if there's a strong third party candidate clearly shows or the fact that they do not want to be tied down by the party affiliations clearly shows that this the upcoming elections would be much more complex than we have seen in recent memory. Anish, could you elaborate a bit more on the kind of challenges Biden is facing on the one hand of course he's had one of the smoothest runs to candidacy in recent times on the other hand there seems to be a huge amount of disenchantment with him from various sections of his coalition. Well the smooth run is not unsurprising it's always been a sort of a tradition among you know incumbent parties or incumbent ruling parties to not put up candidates or any formidable candidates at the very least against a sitting president of their own party so it's not unusual in that term and the kind of candidates that have been put in like Williamson is not somebody who's quite popular even though she might have some you know eccentric and also some in some ways you know progressive stand on several policy issues she's not somebody who's popular at all so he's obviously having a smooth run he's actually pulling much higher than Trump if you look at the margins 70% 80% is like the minimum at the very least but the fact that there is a significant opposition within the democratic camp against Biden is primarily due to the fact that this is a presidency that has been marked by complete inaction like this and it is not just president Biden it's also the democratic party leadership even when they held the congress both the houses a majority when they had it they were the most ineffective ruling party the US could see in recent times and that is something and especially on various a whole range of issues be it medicaid for all be it on matters of demilitarizer and bringing down military expenditure or you know cutting down on foreign wars support for israel or you know actually bringing about changes in immigration laws that can actually help asylum seekers undo the kind of damages that trump had affected a whole host of issues that the biden administration effectively failed on actually making things happen things that they promised things that they promised in that campaign trail they failed to make it happen and that is something that is creating a significant challenge for the democrats in the upcoming election it's a very disillusioned election process also if you look at the fact that a large number of people are ready to vote nobody rather than vote somebody that they are not beholden to the patina doctrine that there is no alternative they do not look at it like that they want an alternative they're demanding an alternative and that the lack of it is is creating a big I mean it can become a bigger problem a bigger trouble because you know if you if your democratic vote turnout is going to fall down because the kind of candidates being put up is not good in a marginal election in a very you know narrow polarized election it is going to be a big set back for you and that is something that the democratic leadership is really not ready to confront at this current point in time right a nation finally what about trump of course there doesn't seem to be much of a challenge inside his party of course but on the other hand will he face any legal obstacles or have they been cleared as well well it's not that he is completely cleared of his legal obstacles obviously he is still facing you know charges for tax fraud he's faced already a conviction he's already has a conviction which is going to have a big impact on his campaign funding to be honest even the immunity process the fact that the supreme court over ruled putting up trump or banning trump from you know primary ballots does not mean that there won't be any challenge when it comes to actual nomination from the party with an actual election because these are still party elections these are internal party elections and primary ballots may show that trump has significant and very unanimous support within nearly unanimous support within the republican party it does not tell you how whether it has it means that trump can actually translate that support outside of the party as well and whether you know a court even if it's a conservative court would have us would would be forced would not be forced to have a different ruling when it comes to challenging you know his nomination as the president so these factors can also be come into play there there was definitely a setback and it was an expected ruling as well since we are looking at a conservative supermajority they will always find ways and means to support him answering that most of them are also you know trump appointees as well so that is there but you do not you still have legal challenges and there will be legal impediments and even if they cannot prevent from from you know running the office they can at least affect his campaign finances which are significantly crucial in the US elections millions of dollars if they are not going to come in from you then you have to find ways to make raise that money and if you are not going to raise that money it is going to be significantly difficult for you to win an election no matter how easy it is so these are factors that are going to obviously affect his campaign as well so challenges are there for Trump as well it is not like he is completely scop free it is going to be a different kind of challenges than what Biden is obviously facing which is obviously the complete inaction under his four years of presidency right not to mention the constant chance of genocide georgias that are chasing him everywhere thank you so much an issue update that's all we have in today's daily debrief we'll be back with a fresh episode tomorrow meanwhile do visit our website people's dispatch.org follow us on all the social media platforms and if you're watching this on youtube please hit the subscribe button