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Legislators from ousted Pakistani prime minister Imran Khan’s party announced they are resigning en masse from the lower house of parliament on Monday in protest against the formation of a new government by his political opponents.
“We are announcing we are all resigning,” Shah Mahmood Qureshi, former foreign minister and vice president of Mr Khan’s party, said in a speech in the assembly ahead of a vote to elect a new prime minister.
Mr Khan was ousted in a no-confidence vote by the same assembly in the early hours of Sunday.
Favourite to replace him is opposition leader Shehbaz Sharif. The 70-year-old is the younger brother of three-time prime minister Nawaz Sharif, who was barred by the Supreme Court in 2017 from holding public office and subsequently went abroad for medical treatment after serving just a few months of a 10-year jail sentence for corruption charges.
The younger Sharif emerged as the leader of a united opposition to topple Mr Khan, a former cricket star who has claimed that the United States was behind his downfall, which Washington has denied.
Mr Khan’s Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) party has submitted papers nominating Mr Qureshi as its candidate for prime minister.
Earlier, PTI said its members of parliament would resign en masse if Mr Qureshi lost, potentially creating the need for urgent by-elections for their seats.
Never have such crowds come out so spontaneously and in such numbers in our history, rejecting the imported govt led by crooks. pic.twitter.com/YWrvD1u8MM
— Imran Khan (@ImranKhanPTI) April 10, 2022
Parliament’s lower house was set to convene for a session to decide the new prime minister on Monday afternoon.
No elected prime minister has completed a full term in the nuclear-armed nation since it won independence from colonial power Great Britain in 1947, though Mr Khan is the first to be removed by a no-confidence vote.
The military has ruled the country of 220 million people for almost half its nearly 75-year history. It viewed Mr Khan and his conservative agenda favourably when he won election in 2018.
But that support waned after a falling out over the appointment of military intelligence chief and economic troubles that last week led to the largest interest rate rise in decades.
Mr Khan remained defiant following his defeat in parliament.
“The freedom struggle begins again today,” he said on his Twitter account on Sunday, which is followed by more than 15 million and still describes him as Prime Minister of Pakistan in his biography section.
Thousands of Mr Khan’s supporters gathered in cities, including Karachi, Lahore and Peshawar, to protest against his ousting in scenes that went on until the early hours of Monday. They blocked roads and shouted slogans against rival parties and the US government.
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Pakistan: MPs from ousted prime minister Imran Khan’s party resign en masse (msn.com)