Sat 23 July 2022:
Large-scale protests against what they referred to as a “theft” of the Punjab provincial assembly vote for the party of former Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan have taken place in Pakistan’s major cities.
Despite winning a by-election there earlier this week, Khan’s Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) party lost a crucial vote on Friday in the local assembly of Pakistan’s most populous province, Punjab.
The vote was conducted to see if the current chief minister of the province, Hamza Sharbaz Sharif, who is also the son of the country’s prime minister, Shehbaz Sharif, had the support of the majority of the local parliament’s members.
Sharif retained his post in another blow to Khan, whose PTI party and its allies had hoped to form a new provincial government in Punjab.
“They have stolen the mandate of Imran Khan. They have betrayed the nation. People won’t tolerate this. We have tolerated this for too long,” protester Shazia Imran told the Associated Press in Pakistan’s largest city of Karachi.
Twenty seats were up for grabs in the Punjab by-election, which was seen as a popularity test for the former international cricket star dismissed by a no-confidence vote in April.
The bloc won 15 of the seats in the 371-member provincial assembly, with Sharif’s Pakistan Muslim League-N (PML-N) taking four, and one going to an independent.
In Friday’s vote, Khan’s candidate for chief minister, Parvez Elahi, initially won 186 votes but the provincial assembly’s deputy speaker, Dost Muhammad Mazari, invalidated 10 of those votes over violations of voting regulations.
Under Pakistani law, votes are disqualified if legislators vote contrary to their party’s instructions.
In a statement broadcast on national television, Mazari announced that 10 legislators from the Pakistan Muslim League headed by Shujaat Hussain, a Khan ally, had voted contrary to demands from their leader, Hussain, who had allegedly asked they abstain from voting.
Hamza Shahbaz Sharif ultimately received 179 votes on Friday, keeping his position. Khan urged his countrymen to protest Mazari’s decision, alleging that his opponents had turned to political scheming.
Khan has asserted that the no-confidence vote that led to his removal was the result of a US conspiracy; however, both his replacement and Washington refute this assertion.
In order to find out which of them is more popular in Pakistan, he wants the new prime minister, Sharif, to call early elections for the parliamentary body.
Sharif has declined the challenge, claiming that the upcoming elections will be held on schedule in 2023.
SOURCE: INDEPENDENT PRESS AND NEWS AGENCIES
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