Raja Pervaiz Ashraf

President of the party in Central Punjab

Raja Pervaiz Ashraf leads the Pakistan Peoples Party in Central Punjab, the chapter that covers Lahore and the districts of the province's northern and central belt. Chairman Bilawal Bhutto Zardari notified his appointment in September 2021, alongside Syed Hassan Murtaza as General Secretary and Shahzad Saeed Cheema as Information Secretary. The Lahore Division organisation reports upward through this chapter.

He is one of the most senior figures the party has, having held two of the three highest offices in the Pakistani state: the premiership and the speakership of the National Assembly.

Early life and entry into politics

He was born on 26 December 1950 in Sanghar, Sindh, and graduated from the University of Sindh in 1970. His political home has always been Gujar Khan in Rawalpindi district, where the family is rooted. He joined the Pakistan Peoples Party in 1990 and contested the elections of 1990, 1993 and 1997 before winning his seat in 2002, and again in 2008. He has represented NA-52 Rawalpindi-I in the National Assembly since February 2024.

In government

He first entered the federal cabinet in March 2008 as Minister for Water and Power, holding the portfolio until February 2011 during the worst years of Pakistan's electricity shortfall. In that period the ministry pushed forward the country's hydropower programme, including the 969-megawatt Neelum-Jhelum project and a series of schemes in Gilgit-Baltistan.

On 22 June 2012 he was elected the 17th Prime Minister of Pakistan, and served until March 2013. He led the government through the final stretch of the PPP's term, the administration whose record includes the 18th Amendment, the 7th NFC Award and the Benazir Income Support Programme, and he handed over to a caretaker administration so that one elected government could complete its term and pass power to the next for the first time in Pakistan's history.

In April 2022 the National Assembly elected him unopposed as its 22nd Speaker. He presided over the house until March 2024.

Rebuilding Punjab

His charge as provincial president is the hardest task the party has: to rebuild the PPP in the province where it was founded and where it has spent two decades out of power. Speaking in Lahore in January 2026, he argued that the party was pushed out of Punjab's power politics by design rather than by the voters, and that it is regaining its strength and will be decisive in the days ahead. The reorganisation of the Lahore Division, town by town and union council by union council, is the practical expression of that argument.