MQM-P’s announcement followed Imran’s meeting with army chief Gen Qamar Javed Bajwa and ISI boss Nadeem Anjum. Sources said the PM was advised to avoid being ousted by a no-confidence vote in Parliament.
Information minister Fawad Chaudhry, however, said Imran wouldn’t retire hurt. “The PM will fight till the last ball,” he tweeted.
MQM-P’s decision effectively snatched Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaaf’s majority in the lower house of Parliament, leaving the coalition government with 164 lawmakers, eight short of the 172 required for Imran to stay in government.
The opposition’s strength in the 342-member National Assembly swelled to 177 even without the expected support of 25 to 40 dissident lawmakers of Imran’s party.
Addressing a joint presser with other members of the combined front, Shehbaz Sharif, leader of the opposition in the National Assembly and Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) president, urged PM Imran to resign and start a new chapter in the political history of the country. “I don’t think he will resign, but it’s a hope against hope,” he said.
Pakistan Peoples Party chairman Bilawal Bhutto Zardari said Imran had run out of options, although he has repeatedly spoken of a “trump card”.
“He can either resign or get dismissed via a no-confidence vote,” he said, calling for the National Assembly speaker to allow voting on the no-trust move on Thursday itself.
In Pakistan’s 75-year history, marred by frequent military coups, no PM has ever completed a term. The more startling statistic is that none has been removed through a no-trust vote yet, which means Imran could become the first to be fired in this manner unless he pulls off a Houdini act.
The PM said at an event in the capital on Wednesday that the current political crisis started due to his government’s “independent foreign policy” that used to be earlier “controlled through telephone calls”.
He later shared the contents of a letter with a few journalists, purportedly containing evidence of a foreign conspiracy against his government.
The PM, according to the journalists, neither named the country nor the officials, saying these details had been shared with the army and ISI chiefs. “What they shared with us is that this letter is a conversation between Pakistani officials and those of another country. They said that Europe and the US were not happy with Pakistan’s stance on Russia and Ukraine,” said Imran Riaz, one of the journalists.
Another journalist who participated in the meeting said only the gist of the letter was shared. According to him, it was clearly stated in the letter that the country concerned was “unhappy” with Pakistan’s policies.
“The Russia tour was clearly mentioned and it was said that it (the visit) was the PM’s individual decision,” he said. “The letter says that if the no-confidence vote succeeds, we will forgive everything; otherwise, the days ahead will be difficult.”
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