Pakistan’s prime minister skirts effort to oust him, orders Parliament dissolved for elections

As an uproar spread through the legislative chamber, furious opposition leaders accused Khan of treason and declared they would immediately go to the Supreme Court to demand that the vote be held as planned. By late afternoon, however, the court had taken no action to challenge the vote cancellation and the shuttering of Parliament, which Pakistan’s president ordered to prepare for elections.

Opposition leaders, as of Saturday, had gathered enough supporting votes among legislators to oust Khan from power as he struggled to manage spiraling inflation and other domestic crises. But Khan, 69, a charismatic former cricket star who won office in 2018 after campaigning to reform a corrupt political system and bring justice to all Pakistanis, blamed the effort to oust him on a foreign conspiracy that he claimed was backed by the United States.

He had vowed to resist the no-confidence measure and called on supporters Saturday to hold peaceful protests across the country.

“I congratulate the nation. The speaker has rejected the effort at regime change that was planned by outsiders,” Khan said in his brief televised statement Sunday. “The nation will not allow this conspiracy to succeed. The assembly will be dissolved and we will go back to the people. We will prepare for new elections and you will decide the future of Pakistan.”

In recent weeks, as he was fighting for his political life, Khan has repeatedly alleged that the U.S administration was behind a plot to remove him from power, citing a private diplomatic cable that suggested Washington would be happier with new leaders in Pakistan. But the cable has not been made public, and a spokesman for the State Department has said there is “no truth” to the accusations.

The controversy has plunged Pakistan’s troubled democratic system into chaos, pitting its civilian institutions against each other and turning the legislative process into a brawl. It has also placed new strains on Pakistan’s long but uneasy relations with the United States, which have veered from Cold War and anti-terror cooperation to mutual blame over meddling in Afghanistan. Khan’s government is now much closer to China, its most important economic and political ally.

Khan, who came to power as a populist domestic reformer, has increasingly refashioned himself as a devout Muslim and ardent nationalist. In recent speeches, tinged with messianic fervor, he depicted his struggle for political survival as a “war for the future of our country” and said Pakistan must choose between being a proud, independent nation or submitting like “slaves” to foreign interests.

It is unclear how Pakistan’s powerful military establishment will respond to this fast-developing political crisis. The army has a long history of interfering with domestic and electoral politics, and Khan’s relationship with military officials has cooled since they tacitly backed his candidacy in 2018. But the current army leaders have pledged to remain neutral in civilian politics, even as Khan has battled to remain in office.