Pakistan’s prime minister has named his choice for the next head of the country’s army after weeks of uncertainty, and just days before the position falls vacant.



A spokesman for Nawaz Sharif said the new chief of army staff would be Qamar Javed Bajwa, a lieutenant general currently in charge of military training.

He will take over from outgoing Raheel Sharif at a change-of-command ceremony on Tuesday. The prime minister also selected a more senior general, Zubair Hayat, as chairman of the joint chiefs of staff committee.

The commander of the world’s sixth largest army is among the most powerful men in the nuclear-armed state.

Talat Masood, a retired general, said the appointment of Bajwa would soothe current tensions between the military and the prime minister, who has repeatedly clashed with the outgoing army chief.

“General Bajwa is not one of those who will try to assert his personality in order to dominate the political scene, or constantly be in the media,” Masood said. “He is more reserved than his predecessor and that will help make the situation more harmonious with the government.”

As army chief, Sharif earned huge popularity for the fall in violence that followed his decision to crackdown on domestic terror groups.

Some Pakistanis demanded that his term in office be extended but Sharif always insisted he would step down as scheduled after three years – the first army chief in two decades to do so.

The prime minister has long hoped to assert the supremacy of civilian rule over an army that cut short his second government in 1999, when he was overthrown by a military coup led by Pervez Musharraf, the army chief of the day.

Since returning to power in 2013, the prime minister has fallen out with the army over an attempt to prosecute Musharraf for treason, and the antics of a pro-government private news channel that accused the army’s intelligence agency of attempting to assassinate a popular journalist.

More recently, the two sides clashed following a newspaper story leaked by one of the prime minister’s aides that claimed the army was protecting Islamist groups that fight against India and Afghanistan.

Bajwa was selected for the role despite a vilification campaign on social media that spread claims some of his relatives were members of the Ahmadiyya community, an Islamic sect despised as heretics by religious hardliners.

He has held senior command positions in the country’s mountainous north, including the contested region of Kashmir, where Pakistani and Indian troops have been exchanging lethal fire for months.

In addition to managing tensions with India, Bajwa is likely to continue his predecessor’s policy of fighting domestic jihadi groups, particularly the Pakistani Taliban.

Masood said the new army chief might also take a tougher line against militant groups that fight in Afghanistan and India – a longstanding demand of the international community.

“The change of command gives him an opportunity to do that and my impression is that he believes it is necessary,” he said. “He will try to make Pakistan not become a reason for the world to point fingers.”