Pakistan lawmakers are set to vote in opposition leader Shehbaz Sharif as the next prime minister after former cricket star Imran Khan was ousted in a no-confidence motion that ended his four-year run.
A united opposition bloc cobbled together 174 lawmakers to vote against Khan after midnight on Sunday in Islamabad, two more than required to remove him from office. Parliament convenes again on Monday to pick his replacement, which will almost certainly be Sharif and who has a more friendly relationship with the army.
Khan’s ouster came after a fallout with Pakistan’s army over a range of issues, including interference in military promotions, his rocky relationship with the US and management of the economy that saw inflation rise at the second fastest pace in Asia. Pakistan’s military has ruled the country for almost half of its 75-year history, and no prime minister has completed a full term in that time.
A jubilant Sharif told lawmakers that “a new morning is beginning” after the no-confidence results were declared. “The prayers of millions of Pakistanis have been heard,” he said.
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Go-between
Sharif, the younger brother of three-time premier Nawaz Sharif, is known to be an efficient administrator that pushed ambitious infrastructure projects when he was chief minister of Punjab. He was also the go-between for his brother and the army, who had many public spats.
The political shakeup in the world’s fifth-most populous nation is likely to immediately rebalance Pakistan’s foreign policy more toward the US and Europe. Khan had shifted Pakistan closer to Russia and China, and sought to sabotage the no-confidence vote by claiming the Biden administration conspired with the opposition to remove him from power. – (Bloomberg)