Imran Khan was yesterday dismissed as Pakistan’s prime minister after losing a vote of no confidence, paving the way for an unlikely opposition alliance that faces the same issues that bedeviled the cricket star-turned-politician.
A new prime minister is to be chosen today, with centrist Pakistan Muslim League-N (PML-N) leader Shehbaz Sharif already anointed to lead the nuclear-armed nation of 220 million people.
His first task would be to form a Cabinet that would draw heavily from the center-left Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP), as well as find space for the smaller conservative Jamiatul Ulema-e-Islam-F group.
Photo: AP
The PPP and PML-N are dynastic parties that have dominated Pakistani politics for decades — usually as bitter rivals — and their relations are sure to fray in the lead-up to the next election, which must be held by October next year.
Sharif is the brother of disgraced three-time Pakistani prime minister Nawaz Sharif, while PPP leader Bilawal Bhutto Zardari is the son of former Pakistani president Asif Ali Zardari and the late former prime minister Benazir Bhutto.
Khan’s exit was met with a mixture of glee and sympathy.
“Back to the pavilion,” the influential Express Tribune newspaper wrote, using a cricket metaphor headline writers have found difficult to resist during Khan’s tenure.
No prime minister has ever served a full term in Pakistan, but Khan is the first to lose office via a vote of no-confidence.
“Sad day for Pakistan ... a good man sent home,” his former minister of information and broadcasting Fawad Chaudhry wrote on Twitter.
There had been high hopes for Khan when he was elected in 2018 on a promise of sweeping away decades of entrenched corruption and cronyism, but he struggled to maintain support amid soaring inflation, a feeble rupee and crippling debt.
Militancy is also on the rise, with Pakistan’s Taliban emboldened by the return to power last year of the hardline Muslim group in neighboring Afghanistan.
Khan had vowed to fight “until the last ball” and he certainly took his exit to the wire yesterday.
He tried everything to stay in power — including dissolving parliament and calling a fresh election — but the Pakistani Supreme Court deemed all his actions illegal last week, and ordered the assembly to reconvene and vote.
Still, there was drama right until the midnight deadline ordered by the court, with the speaker of the assembly — a Khan loyalist — resigning at the last minute. The session restarted after midnight with a replacement, and the vote was finally held.
Khan’s Tehreek-e-Insaf lawmakers stormed out, but the no-confidence motion passed with 174 votes in the 342-seat assembly.
Khan said he has been the victim of a “regime change” conspiracy involving Washington and he is certain to tap into anti-US sentiment from the opposition benches.
“Khan’s politics don’t stop here, his support base is intact,” said Zahid Hussain, a political analyst and author. “His narrative of last few months, that he has been removed through a foreign conspiracy, has earned him some support.”
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