Saturday 9 April 2022

Imran Khan’s term comes to unceremonious end

In Pakistan, the opposition's no-trust motion against Prime Minister Imran Khan succeeded an hour past midnight on Sunday, with 174 members in the 342-strong house voting in favour of the resolution.

PML-N's Ayaz Sadiq, who was chairing the session after Asad Qaiser resigned as speaker, announced the result. As a result, Imran Khan ceased to hold the office of Prime Minister, according to Article 95 of the Constitution.

Imran Khan is the first prime minister in Pakistan's history to have been removed from office through a no-confidence vote. Before him, Shaukat Aziz in 2006, and Benazir Bhutto in 1989, survived the moves against them.

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.

After Shehbaz, Bilawal took the floor and congratulated the house for passing a no-trust resolution against a premier for the first time in history.

"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."

Minutes before voting began, National Assembly Speaker Asad Qaiser resigned from his post, saying he could not take part in a foreign conspiracy to oust the prime minister.

Qaiser's resignation came almost 15 minutes before midnight, which according to legal experts, was the deadline to implement the Supreme Court's orders to conduct voting on the no-trust motion.

Before announcing his resignation, Qaiser said that he had received "important documents" from the cabinet, which he invited the leader of the opposition and the chief justice of Pakistan to see.

"In line with our laws and the need to stand for our country, I have decided that I can't remain on the position of speaker and thereby resign," he said.

"Because this is a national duty and it is the Supreme Court's decision, I will ask the panel Chairman Ayaz Sadiq to run the session," Qaiser said.

After Sadiq took the chair, he paid tribute to Qaiser for remaining with his party and opting for an "honourable exit".

"He [Qaiser] had a very good relationship with all of us, a working relationship. He tried to conduct all these proceedings with dignity and together with the opposition."

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