An alliance of Opposition parties ousted prime minister Imran Khan with a 174 vote on its no-trust motion in the National Assembly, the Lower House of the Parliament, on Sunday.
The Opposition succeeded in bringing the removal vote without using the dissident votes from Imran Khan’s Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaaf party in the 342-member House.
Shehbaz Sharif, brother of former prime minister Nawaz Sharif, who is the combined Opposition’s candidate for prime minister, paid tribute to all leaders part of the joint opposition parties, and vowed that the “new regime would not indulge politics of revenge”.
“I don’t want to go back to the bitterness of the past. We want to forget them and move forward. We will not take revenge or do an injustice; we will not send people to jail for no reason, law, and justice will take its course,” Shehbaz said.
The Opposition parties include the Pakistan People’s Party, led by Bilawal Bhutto, son of former prime minister Benazir Bhutto and President Asif Ali Zardari, the Pakistan Muslim League, headed by the Sharif family, a religious political party, and small other parties.
This is for the first time a prime minister has been removed from office through a constitutionally allowed no-confidence move.
Bilawal compared the moment to past democratic milestones.
“On April 10, 1973, this house approved the Constitution. On April 10, 1986, Benazir Bhutto ended her exile and returned to Lahore for her struggle against Gen Ziaul Haq,” Bilawal recalled.
“Today is April 10, 2022, and the one we had declared selected, the non-democratic burden this country was bearing for the past 3 years, today, April 10, 2022, welcome back to Purana (old) Pakistan.”
Khan’s ouster capped a night of dramatic developments including the resignation of the former Speaker, the Supreme Court, and the High Court admitting cases late into the night.
The High Court admitted a petition that the prime minister may not be allowed to remove the Army Chief from his position on political grounds.
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