ISLAMABAD — Pakistan
Prime Minister
Imran Khan called on his supporters to take to the streets
Sunday ahead of a parliamentary no-confidence vote that could see him thrown
out of office.
اضافة اعلان
No Pakistan premier has ever completed a
full term, and Khan is facing the biggest challenge to his rule since being
elected in 2018, with opponents accusing him of economic mismanagement and
foreign-policy bungling.
Parliament is due to debate the motion
Sunday — with a vote possibly the same day — but Khan's
Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf party (PTI) effectively lost its majority in the
342-member assembly last week when a coalition partner said its seven lawmakers
would vote with the opposition.
More than a dozen PTI lawmakers have also
indicated they will cross the floor, although party leaders are trying to get
the courts to prevent them from voting.
On Saturday Khan called on supporters to
take to the streets to peacefully protest against what he said was a
"conspiracy" hatched outside Pakistan to unseat him.
"I want you all to protest for an
independent and free Pakistan," he said during a public question and
answer phone-in broadcast by state media.
Earlier this week he accused the
United States of meddling in Pakistan's affairs, with local media reporting he had
received a briefing letter from Islamabad's ambassador to Washington recording
a senior US official telling him they felt relations would be better if Khan
left office.
In Washington, State Department spokesman
Ned Price told reporters there was "no truth" to the allegations.
Khan has accused the opposition of conspiring
with Washington to remove him because he will not take the West's side on
global issues against Russia and China.
He called his opponents "robbers,
cowards, deceivers".
The opposition is headed by the Pakistan
Muslim League-N (PML-N) and the Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) — two usually
feuding dynastic groups that dominated national politics for decades until Khan
forged a coalition against them.
Army key to power
If Khan goes, the PML-N's Shehbaz Sharif is
tipped to become the next prime minister — but on Saturday the government moved
to have him sent back to jail to await trial on money-laundering charges that
have been pending since 2020.
The government asked a Lahore court to
revoke his bail, with a decision expected Monday.
Sharif is the younger brother of three-time
prime minister
Nawaz Sharif, who was ousted and jailed on corruption charges in
2017 and is currently in Britain after being released from prison two years
later for medical treatment.
Khan was elected after promising to sweep
away decades of entrenched corruption and cronyism, but has struggled to
maintain support with inflation skyrocketing, a feeble rupee, and crippling
debt.
Some analysts say Khan has also lost the
crucial support of the military — claims both sides deny — and Pakistan's army
is key to political power.
There have been four military coups -- and
at least as many unsuccessful ones — since independence in 1947, and the
country has spent more than three decades under army rule.
Debate on the no-confidence motion was due
to start Thursday, but the deputy speaker — from Khan's party — suspended
proceedings when legislators declined to first address other items on the
agenda.
Khan, a former international cricket star
who in 1992 captained
Pakistan to their only World Cup win, hinted he still had
a card to play.
"I have a plan for tomorrow, you should
not be worried about it. I will show them and will defeat them in the
assembly."
In the past, parties have resorted to
physically preventing lawmakers from voting on key legislation by blocking
access to the national assembly, leading to cat-and-mouse chases and even
accusations of kidnapping.
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