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ISLAMABAD: Retired bureaucrat Muhammad Azam Khan was nominated as the caretaker chief minister of Pakistan's northwestern Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP) province on Friday after the provincial assembly was dissolved earlier this week by ex-PM Imran Khan's party to put pressure on the coalition government.

In its bid to push the government toward early polls, KP Chief Minister Mahmood Khan, who belongs to Khan's Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) party, advised the governor to dissolve the provincial assembly earlier this week. The governor acted on his advice and subsequently dissolved the provincial assembly on Wednesday. 

The chief minister and leader of the opposition, Akram Khan Durrani, agreed to nominate former KP chief secretary Muhammad Azam Khan, a notification by the Pakhtunkhwa House said. 

"We, after consultation, have agreed to nominate M. Azam Khan to be appointed as care-taker Chief Minister, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa," the notification, bearing the chief minister's and Durrani's signatures, read. 

"Governor Khyber Pakhtunkhwa may proceed to appoint him as such."

According to the KP government, Azam Khan has served as finance minister and as federal secretary of the religious and petroleum ministries of the province in the past. He has also served as the chief secretary of the KP government. 

Earlier this week, Khan's key ally and Punjab Chief Minister Chaudhry Parvez Elahi also dissolved the provincial assembly in Pakistan's most populous province, Punjab. The dissolution of the assemblies in the two provinces ruled by Khan’s party has created a crisis for the coalition government of PM Shehbaz Sharif.

Pakistan is due to hold general elections later this year, but Khan has been calling for early elections since he was ousted from office last April in a parliamentary vote of no-confidence.

Holding elections in both provinces, in addition to general elections, will be an expensive and logistically complicated exercise for a government heavily dependent on foreign aid after devastating floods last year.

Political analysts say the new pressure created by the dissolution of the two assemblies will bolster Khan’s demands, although any local assembly elections do not constitutionally trigger a national election.

PM Sharif's coalition government has repeatedly denied Khan's request to hold elections before October 2023.