Ex-PM Imran Khan pushes for early Pakistan election by dissolving second provincial govt – Times of India
PESHAWAR, PAKISTAN: Seeking to force Pakistan to hold an early national election, the opposition party led by former prime minister Imran Khan dissolved its provincial government in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa on Wednesday, three days after doing the same in Punjab province.
Under the rules, fresh polls for the two provincial assemblies should be held within 90 days, and Khan’s Pakistan’s Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) is gambling on the national government being unable to afford to hold the provincial elections separately from a national election, which is otherwise due by October.
Pakistan has four provinces, and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa in the northwest and Punjab in the east account for more that half of the country’s 220 million population.
Khyber Pakhtunkhwa’s governor Ghulam Ali said he had accepted the resignation tendered by the PTI government a day earlier, telling reporters that he had “no other option”.
The 70-year-old Khan, a former captain of Pakistan international cricket team, has been demanding snap polls since his ouster in a confidence vote in parliament in April.
He has also led a nationwide protest campaign against his successor Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif, and was shot and wounded at a rally in October.
Sharif, whose government is trying to steer the economy out of a severe crisis that was worsened by the devastating floods in the country last year, has repeatedly rejected the calls for early polls.
Under the rules, fresh polls for the two provincial assemblies should be held within 90 days, and Khan’s Pakistan’s Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) is gambling on the national government being unable to afford to hold the provincial elections separately from a national election, which is otherwise due by October.
Pakistan has four provinces, and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa in the northwest and Punjab in the east account for more that half of the country’s 220 million population.
Khyber Pakhtunkhwa’s governor Ghulam Ali said he had accepted the resignation tendered by the PTI government a day earlier, telling reporters that he had “no other option”.
The 70-year-old Khan, a former captain of Pakistan international cricket team, has been demanding snap polls since his ouster in a confidence vote in parliament in April.
He has also led a nationwide protest campaign against his successor Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif, and was shot and wounded at a rally in October.
Sharif, whose government is trying to steer the economy out of a severe crisis that was worsened by the devastating floods in the country last year, has repeatedly rejected the calls for early polls.
For all the latest world News Click Here
Denial of responsibility! TechAI is an automatic aggregator around the global media. All the content are available free on Internet. We have just arranged it in one platform for educational purpose only. In each content, the hyperlink to the primary source is specified. All trademarks belong to their rightful owners, all materials to their authors. If you are the owner of the content and do not want us to publish your materials on our website, please contact us by email – [email protected]. The content will be deleted within 24 hours.
