Pakistani expatriates in the Kingdom were elated with the formal election of Nawaz Sharif, 63, as their country’s prime minister yesterday.

“I waited for this moment for 14 long years,” said Ziauddin Bukhari, a diehard Sharif supporter. “There were tears in my eyes when I saw my leader being crowned as the prime minister in the National Assembly.”

Sharif was elected with an overwhelming majority, capturing 224 of the 294 ballots cast by assembly members.

Naila Butt, who teaches English at a private school in Alkhobar, was ecstatic on her Twitter account.

“He is a lion and we knew he would roar again,” she gushed, referring to Sharif’s election symbol. “Of course, there were tense moments before the elections,” she said. “The media and overseas Pakistanis had created such hype around Sharif’s nearest rival, Imran Khan, that we were totally confused.”

Safdar Bahadur Khan from Riyadh had no doubts about Sharif’s return to power for the third time. “He was bound to win,” he said.

“He is the tallest political leader in Pakistan today, and ever since he returned to Pakistan some years ago after his forced exile to Saudi Arabia, he has done all the right things.”

“He is not arrogant,” said Sardar Sultan, a Pakistani businessman based in Dammam. “Despite a very sneaky campaign by Imran Khan, Sharif went up to him and made up with him, that is what real leadership is all about.”

Pakistani expatriates feel especially attached to Sharif because he spent his exile here. “We would often see him at the Holy Mosque in Makkah and the Prophet’s Mosque in Madinah, and we would pray for him,” said Syed Shahid Rabbani. “He would always be in Madinah during the last 10 days of Ramadan, he is a good Muslim and he will make Pakistan rise and shine.”

Sharif faces immediate and dire economic challenges.

“We have no other option, except for democracy,” said Sharif, who served two terms as prime minister in the 1990s but was ousted in a coup, jailed and then exiled to Saudi Arabia until 2007. “We should strengthen the democracy for the better prospects of Pakistan, and we should close all doors to dictatorship.”

Sharif vowed to swiftly address chronic energy shortages that leave residents of the nuclear-armed nation without electricity and air conditioning in sweltering heat for up to 15 hours each day.

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