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Stunned Pakistan opposition held no-trust vote against PM in parallel session
In a surprise reprieve for Imran Khan, the no-confidence motion was dismissed as "unconstitutional" by deputy speaker Qasim Suri.
Soon after Pakistan's Imran Khan bowled a yorker at his rivals on Sunday by getting the presidential approval for the dissolution of Parliament, the combined opposition chose its own speaker and held a parallel session as the no-trust vote against the beleaguered prime minister was dismissed earlier. In an unprecedented turn of events, PML-N leader Ayaz Sadiq, who presided over the sitting as a member of the panel of chairpersons that had been announced by Speaker Asad Qaiser at the start of the assembly session on March 25, took the chair of speaker and while the opposition declared the motion successful with 197 votes.
Khan was widely expected to lose the no-trust vote moved by an alliance of Opposition politicians, including more than a dozen defectors from his own political party, in the National Assembly.
But in a surprise reprieve for the 69-year-old cricketer-turned-politician, the no-confidence motion was dismissed as "unconstitutional" by deputy speaker Qasim Suri, leading to vociferous protests by the opposition.
Khan, who had effectively lost the majority in the 342-member National Assembly, made a brief address to the nation in which he said he has recommended the dissolution of the House and sought fresh elections.
Khan, head of the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) party, congratulated the nation on the no-trust motion being dismissed, saying the deputy speaker had "rejected the attempt of changing the regime [and] the foreign conspiracy".
The stunned opposition termed the entire process to reject the no-confidence motion against the prime minister and dissolution of assembly against the Constitution and its lawmakers refused to leave the premises of Parliament.
According to the Pakistani daily Dawn, opposition members then decided to conduct a parallel no-trust vote against Khan.
Though it ran the session without the support of the secretariat staff and even without the sound system, the members declared the proceedings “legal and valid”.
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According to the report, besides the opposition, the members of former allies of the government and 22 dissidents of the PTI voted in support of the resolution that was formally presented by Leader of the Opposition and PML-N president Shehbaz Sharif.
PPP chairman Bilawal Bhutto-Zardari, who had left the assembly hall earlier, also returned after holding some consultations.
Sadiq reportedly overturned the deputy speaker's ruling after seeking approval of the members through a voice vote and then gave the floor to Sharif to formally move the resolution for voting. After the completion of the voting process, Sadiq adjourned the proceedings till April 6.
