Imran Khan loses no-trust vote, prime ministerial term comes to unceremonious end
‘We will not take revenge,’ Shahbaz Sharif says after Imran Khan’s ouster
AMN / WEB DESK
Pakistan’s National Assembly, voted Prime Minister Imran Khan out of power Saturday, nearly four years after he took office.
The voting on the opposition-launched, no-confidence resolution began after midnight local time, minutes after Speaker Asad Qaiser from Khan’s ruling party unexpectedly announced his resignation.
Qaiser invited a senior opposition lawmaker, Ayaz Sadiq, to chair the special session of the 342-member house, saying he could not take part in a “foreign conspiracy” to oust the prime minister.
Sadiq later announced that 174 lawmakers voted in favor of the no-confidence motion.
“Consequently, the resolution for vote of no-confidence against Mr. Imran Khan, the prime minister of the Islamic Republic of Pakistan, has a been passed by a majority of the total membership of the National Assembly,” Sadiq said.
Almost all legislators of Khan’s Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) party left before or during the voting process.
Before adjourning the session, Sadiq said the nomination papers for the new prime minister may be submitted by 2pm today (Sunday) and scrutiny would be done by 3pm. He summoned the session on Monday at 11am and said the new premier would be elected then.
Later, it was announced that the assembly would meet at 2:00pm instead.
Earlier, after announcing the result, Sadiq gave the floor to Shehbaz Sharif, who is the joint opposition’s candidate for the post of prime minister. Shehbaz paid tribute to all leaders part of the joint opposition, and vowed that the “new regime would not indulge in politics of revenge”.
“I don’t want to go back to bitterness of the past. We want to forget them and move forward. We will not take revenge or do injustice; we will not send people to jail for no reason, law and justice will take its course,” Shehbaz said.
Shahbaz said this might be the first time in Pakistan that the country’s daughters and sisters were sent to prison, but he maintained that he wanted to forget the past and move forward.
“When the time comes, we will speak in detail, but we want to heal the wounds of the nation; we will not send innocent people to jails, and we will not take revenge,” Shabaz said, noting that the law will take its course without interference
“Neither I, nor Bilawal, and nor will Maulana Fazlur Rehman will interfere. Law will be upheld and we will respect the judiciary,” Shahbaz said, thanking Sadiq for chairing the historic session.
“Jab apna qafla azm o yakeen se niklay ga, jahan se chahen ge rasta wohi se niklay ga, watan ki mitti airian ragrne day, mujhe yaqeen hai chashman yaheen se niklayga,” Shahbaz concluded.
In a historic first for Pakistan, Imran Khan was ousted as the prime minister of Pakistan from office through a no-confidence motion after the NA debated on the matter for more than 12 hours and the political situation in the country took a critical turn.
The session was chaired by Ayaz Sadiq — a member of the panel of chairs — after speaker Asad Qasier resigned from his post.
Supreme Court ruling
Saturday’s vote was held after the country’s Supreme Court ruled earlier in the week that Khan had acted unconstitutionally when he previously blocked the no-confidence vote and subsequently dissolving the parliament.
Khan defended his blocking of the vote, alleging that the no-confidence motion was the result of the United States meddling in Pakistan’s politics.
Washington rejected the charges, saying there was “no truth” to them.
“I will not accept an imported government, and I am determined to vehemently agitate against it,” Khan said in an address to the nation Friday. He called on his supporters to stage nationwide, peaceful protests Sunday.
The deposed prime minister alleged in his speech that he was being punished by Washington for visiting Russia and pursuing an “independent foreign policy” for Pakistan. He visited President Vladimir Putin on the day the Russian troops invaded Ukraine.
Lost military support
Khan is the first Pakistani prime minister to be ousted by a no-confidence vote, but no elected prime minister has served out a full five-year term since the founding of the country 75 years ago.
He was elected prime minister in 2018, promising to root out corruption and introduce reforms to fix economic troubles facing the country of about 220 million people.
But critics say most of those pledges have gone unaddressed amid persistent opposition allegations that Khan was misruling Pakistan and mismanaging the economy.
Khan’s critics say he had risen to power with the help of Pakistan’s military but lost the crucial support in recent months after developing differences over key security appointments and foreign policy matters, encouraging the opposition to stage his ouster.
Pakistan has experienced three military coups, leading to prolonged dictatorial rules in the country. Direct and indirect military interventions are blamed for the fragility of democracy in the nuclear-armed South Asia nation.