Shaukat Aziz

Shaukat Aziz شوکت عزیز
Aziz at the 2007 World Economic Forum Annual Meeting.
24th Prime Minister of Pakistan
In office 20 August 2004 – 15 November 2007
President	Pervez Musharraf
Preceded by	Chaudhry Shujaat Hussain
Succeeded by	Muhammad Mian Soomro
17th Finance Minister of Pakistan
In office 12 October 1999 – 15 November 2007
Preceded by	Ishaq Dar
Succeeded by	Salman Shah
Born	March 6, 1949 (1949-03-06) (age 60) Karachi, Sindh, Pakistan
Political party	Pakistan Muslim League (Q)
Religion	Islam

Shaukat Aziz (Urdu: شوکت عزیز), (born March 6, 1949 in Karachi, Pakistan) was the Prime Minister of Pakistan from 2004 to 2007. He became Finance Minister in November 1999 and was handpicked by President Musharraf for the position of Prime Minister after the resignation of Zafarullah Khan Jamali on June 6, 2004. He became Prime Minister on August 28, 2004 and served until November 15 2007. He became the first Prime Minister of Pakistan to complete a full term in office.

Education

Aziz attended Saint Patrick's High School, Karachi and Abbottabad Public School, Abbottabad. He passed his Intermediate from Government Islamia College, Kot Radha Kishen. He graduated with a Bachelor of Science degree from Gordon College, Rawalpindi, in 1967. He obtained an MBA Degree in 1969 from Institute of Business Administration (IBA) in Karachi, one of the premier business schools in Pakistan. It was during his studies at the IBA that he secured an internship at Citibank and began his banking career.

Controversy

Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz has been mentioned in rather uncharitable terms in US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice’s biography according to which when he tried to charm Dr Rice on her first trip to Pakistan in 2005. Her biographer writes, "When Rice sat down with Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz, who fancied himself as a ladies' man, Aziz puffed himself up and held forth in what he obviously thought was his seductive baritone. He bragged - to Western diplomats, no less - that he could conquer any woman in two minutes."

Mr Aziz "tried this Savile Row-suited gigolo kind of charm: 'Pakistan is a country of rich traditions,' staring in [Dr Rice's] eyes."

Rice goes on to describe him as "babbling" by the end of the meeting.

He has also been given the nickname "slippery" due to his perceived character.

Pre-politics

In 1969 he joined Citibank, serving in various countries, including Pakistan, Greece, the United States, the United Kingdom, Malaysia, and Singapore. He served as Citibank's head of Corporate and Investment Banking for the Asia Pacific region and the CEEMEA region (Central & Eastern Europe, the Middle East and Africa); as Corporate Planning Officer, Citicorp; as Citibank's Chief Country Officer in Malaysia and, later, in Jordan. He has been a board member of Citibank subsidiaries, including Saudi American Bank, Citicorp Islamic Bank, and of several non-profit organizations^[1].

Finance Minister

On 26th November 1999, while addressing a gathering of PakPAC, a political lobbying sub-body of the Association of Pakistani Physicians of North America (APPNA), Musharraf stated that Shaukat Aziz has come to Pakistan with forty other financial experts who have offered free service to revive the Pakistani economy. Then he asked Shaukat Aziz to stand up and introduce himself to the audience.

In November 1999 Aziz became the government's Finance Minister with responsibility for Finance, Economic Affairs, Statistics, Planning and Development, and Revenue Divisions. As Minister of Finance Aziz also headed the Economic Coordination Committee of the Cabinet, the Cabinet Committee on Investment, the Executive Committee of the National Economic Council, and the Cabinet Committee on Privatization.

In 2001 Aziz was declared 'Finance Minister of the Year' by Euromoney and Banker's Magazine.

Prime Minister

Shaukat Aziz at the White House with US president George W. Bush, 24th January, 2006.

Aziz was named by the Pakistan Muslim League (Q) as the next Prime Minister after Mir Zafarullah Khan Jamali resigned on June 6, 2004. He pipped Humayun Akhtar to the post at the 11th hour.

The post was held by Chaudhry Shujaat Hussain while Aziz fulfilled the constitutional requirement of securing a seat in the lower house of parliament. Aziz ran from two constituencies, Tharparkar-I in Sindh, and Attock- III, located west of Islamabad^[2]. While campaigning on July 29, 2004 Aziz survived an assassination attempt in the small town of Fateh Jang in Attock district. A suicide bomber blew himself up next to a car in which Aziz was travelling, killing his chauffeur and eight others. However, Aziz continued campaigning and won from both constituencies. Since he could retain only one seat, he immediately vacated his Tharparkar seat, preferring to represent Attock, where he had won by 76,156 votes to 29,497.

Aziz was elected Prime Minister by Parliament on August 27, 2004, by a vote of 191 to 151 in the National Assembly of Pakistan, and was sworn in on August 28, 2004. He retained his position as Minister of Finance, and he presided over an unprecedented boom in the Pakistani economy.

Aziz left office on November 16 2007, at the end of the parliamentary term and became the first Prime Minister of Pakistan who left seat after completion of parliamentary term of five years.^[3] His party, Pakistan Muslim League (Q), however, refused to offer him a ticket for contesting the 2008 National Assembly Elections, a mandatory requirement for the second term in the premier post. Interestingly, present leading parliamentarians like Khawaja Asif and many others call him the architect of the Casino economy after his close aides made millions of dollars in different sectors - for instance, the stock exchange, wheat, rice, cement and steel sectors. The Steel Mills case is one of the biggest controversies surrounding him as the Chairman of the Steel Mills Association at the time has subsequently come out and spilled the beans on Shaukat Aziz's involvement. Iftikhar Chaudhry, the ex Chief Justice, was looking to investigate this case at the time, and this would have implicated Shaukat Aziz. It is said that Shaukat Aziz contributed to convincing President Musharraf to fire him for this reason.

References

External links

• Profile by BBC dated July 30, 2004
• The Turnaround Wizard - Asia Inc. cover story, March 4, 2004
• Asiasource interview of Shaukat Aziz dated April 20, 2004
• Shaukat Aziz's Economic Legacy
• http://www.infopak.gov.pk/primeminister.aspx
• A conversation with Pakistan Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz A South China Morning Post podcast featuring an interview with Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz, dated 28 March, 2007
• NNDB Profile of Shaukat Aziz
• When Aziz was stared down by Rice