New Delhi (NVI) Pakistan Prime Minister Imran Khan today pulled off a victory in the Vote of Confidence in Parliament, bagging 178 votes, six more than the required number.
The Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaaf (PTI)-led government scored the victory in the lower House of Parliament in the absence of 10-party opposition alliance Pakistan Democratic Movement (PDM), which boycotted the proceedings of the Vote of Confidence.
The PDM, which has been campaigning for ouster of Imran Khan’s government for over six months, said it boycotted the proceedings as the exercise was futile.
The PDM said the opposition had won “moral victory” after defeating the ruling party candidate in the Senate polls.
Khan, who is ruling Pakistan since August 2018, had called for the vote after a shocking defeat of his Finance Minister Abdul Hafeez Shaikh in the bitterly-contested Senate election on Wednesday. Shaikh lost to Yousuf Raza Gilani, former Prime Minister and leader of Pakistan Peoples Party.
The PDM has been saying that Khan is a “selected Prime Minister”, which means that he assumed the top post only because of the all-powerful army. It says that the army and intelligence agencies continue to use all kinds of methods to ensure that Khan continues to be in power.
Even today, PDM chief Maulana Fazlur Rehman said the ‘agencies’ played a role in ensuring Khan’s victory in the Vote of Confidence.
He said the personnel of the ‘agencies’ had knocked at the doors of members of the National Assembly to make sure that they voted for Khan in the Vote of Confidence, which he described as a ‘gimmick’.
Khan is facing an onslaught from most of the opposition political parties, which blame him for failures, especially the economic crisis that the country is facing.
Pakistan has been facing a severe financial mess, with prices witnessing exponential increase and the liability of international debt mounting.
