With his party losing a small parliamentary majority as inflation and declining living standards have sparked resentment, Khan’s political opponents have garnered enough support in the Pakistan National Assembly to end the prime minister’s term by a unanimous vote. . But in a shock move, a spokesman for Khan’s allies rejected the proposal in absentia, claiming it was unconstitutional. The President of Pakistan then dissolved the National Assembly at the request of Khan, starting the clock for the elections that will be held in 90 days. “I urge the people to prepare for the next election,” Hahn said in a televised address on Sunday. “Thank God a conspiracy to overthrow the government failed.” Elected on a reform and anti-corruption platform, the populist Muslim politician struggled to live up to expectations. And while support from Pakistan’s powerful military was crucial to Khan’s victory in 2018, analysts said, the military insisted it had no involvement in the current political situation – meaning the military was not coming to help Khan. “Most of the support for Pakistan’s ruling Tehreek-e-Insaf party came from the military and intelligence wing, which kept all these moving pieces together,” said Bilal Gilani, executive director of the Gallup Pakistan poll. “Everyone knew that as soon as they had a bad reputation with the army and the secret services, everything would unfold.” No Pakistani prime minister has served a full five-year term and the 75-year-old nation is ruled by generals for about half of its existence. However, Khan has revived some support in recent weeks by claiming that foreign powers are trying to oust him, particularly blaming the United States – allegations that a White House spokesman categorically denied at a news conference on Thursday. Analysts said the rhetoric helped drown out critics who accused him of financial mismanagement as food prices soared. Although Khan “[threw] “Diplomatic standards are up in the air,” said Huma Baqai, an associate professor at the Karachi Institute of Business Administration. “Food inflation, bad governance, nobody talked about it.” In Pakistan, anti-American sentiment “is not new and it sells,” he added. “The road is almost happy” in response to Khan’s political maneuvers, Bakai said. His supporters say “the Captain did it again”. The political drama of high stakes continued on Sunday, as opposition parties challenged Kahn’s moves to the Supreme Court. “What you are seeing is a complex political and constitutional crisis unfolding in Pakistan,” said Azeema Cheema, director of research and strategy at Verso Consulting. Rejecting the no-confidence vote, “the prime minister overturned the constitution,” Sahid Hakan Abbasi, a former prime minister and senior Pakistani Muslim League-Nawaz opposition politician, told the Financial Times. “We just want the Supreme Court to order the National Assembly to meet and vote. [on Khan]. » However, the political turmoil is putting more pressure on Pakistan’s economy, said Mohammad Sohail, chief executive of Topline, a Karachi-based stock company already facing “inflation and external account challenges.” The Khan government and the IMF have agreed on a $ 6 billion loan program in 2019 to stave off a balance of payments crisis. Khan called for a show of solidarity from supporters. And having said that he could be in danger of being assassinated, he compared himself to Imam Hussein, a grandson of the Prophet Muhammad who was killed taking a stand against a tyrannical leader in the seventh century. “Today, we are fighting for truth and patriotism against lies and betrayal,” Khan wrote on Twitter on Saturday, the eve of the Muslim holy month of Ramadan. “It’s a politically unstable situation, you can have a lot of street violence,” Cheema said. But on the other hand, he added, Khan should not rely on a mass turnout “in the middle [Ramadan] when everyone is fasting, in the middle of a strange heat “.
