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Pakistan’s Prime Minister Imran Khan has been ousted from power after losing a no-confidence vote in his leadership.
The vote was held on Sunday midnight after opposition parties brought a motion in the National Assembly against him, which was upheld by country’s apex Court.
Iman Khan had said he would not recognise an opposition government, claiming that there was a US-led conspiracy to remove him, BBC reported.
The National Assembly, the lower house of Pakistan’s Parliament, will now appoint a new prime minister.
Pakistan’s parliament will meet to vote for the country’s new leader on Monday.
That person will be able to hold power until July 2023, when the next election is due to be held.
Ayaz Sadiq, who acted as Speaker of the national assembly while there are no ruling party members or designated speakers, said nomination papers for candidates should be filed by 11:00 a.m. on Sunday.
Imran Khan becomes the first Pakistani prime minister to be ousted by a no-confidence vote in South Asian country’s constitutional history.
The Supreme Court ruled on Thursday that 69 years old cricketer-turned- poiitician had acted unconstitutionally when he blocked the no-confidence vote and dissolved parliament.
Minutes before the vote started, Asad Qaisar, the speaker of Pakistan’s lower house of parliament announced his resignation. Members of Pakistan Tehrik-e-Insaaf, the ruiing party left the building, claiming that Imran Khan was the victim of an international conspiracy.
Opposition parties were able to secure 174 votes in the 342-member house in support of the no-confidence motion, the house speaker said, making it a majority vote.
In a tweet, opposition leader Shehbaz Sharif said Pakistan and its parliament were “finally freed from a serious crisis”.
Shehbaz Sharif added: “Congratulations to the Pakistani nation on a new dawn.”
The former captain of Pakistan’s national cricket team was elected prime minister in August 2018, and promised to fight corruption and fix the economy.
But those pledges have gone unmet with the country gripped by a financial crisis.
In late March a series of defections deprived him of his majority and left him fighting for his political career.
Imran Khan has accused the Pakistan’s opposition parties of being stooges of foreign powers. He also claims that he is the target of a US-led conspiracy to remove him because of his refusal to stand with Washington on issues against Russia and China.
However, US has repeatedly denied the accusation, saying that there was “no truth” in these allegations.
He visited Moscow to meet President Vladimir Putin In February when Russia was launching the invasion of Ukraine .
Saturday’s vote came after opposition lawmakers put forward a no-confidence motion to parliament last Sunday, in a bid to oust Mr Khan from power.
But parliament’s deputy speaker Qasim Suri – a member of Imran Khan’s political party PTI- swiftly blocked the vote, saying it showed “foreign interference”.
Suri also said that it went against the constitution, which calls for loyalty to the state.
Imran Khan’s government went on to dissolve parliament and called for a snap election to be held. This angered several opposition members, with some accusing the prime minister of treason for blocking the vote.
Opposition members submitted a petition to the Supreme Court to assess the situation, according to foreign media reports.
On Thursday, Pakistan’s Supreme Court ruled that Imran Khan’s decision to stop the vote from going ahead was unconstitutional. It ordered that the no-confidence vote should go ahead again.
However an impasse over the vote continued well into Saturday evening, prompting the speaker of the lower house of parliament – Asad Qaiser, an ally of Imran Khan – to resign.
