Pakistan: Vote on no-confidence motion delayed until Monday

FE Team | Published: March 26, 2022 00:05:25

ISLAMABAD, Mar 25 (Agencies): The speaker of Pakistan's parliament has adjourned a motion of no-confidence in Prime Minister Imran Khan, provoking opposition accusations he is buying time for the ex-cricketer to muster support after a spate of defections from his party.
The motion will now be tabled on Monday after which seven days of debate should take place before an actual vote.
The day was reserved to pray for the departed souls of its member from Hangu, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP), a former senator and a former president of the country.
The session was adjourned later without any debate or tabling of the much-anticipated no-confidence motion that has been pending with the House for several weeks.
Speaker National Assembly Asad Qaiser said that according to tradition, the agenda was deferred to the next day. "This has been a norm for years," he said and even gave the number that it took place 24 times in the past.
A day earlier, the National Assembly Secretariat had issued a 15-point 'Orders of the Day' for the NA session that also included the no-confidence resolution.
In Friday's session, over 150 lawmakers from the opposition side and around 50 from treasury benches participated. Information Minister Fawad Chaudhry in a tweet said, nothing was to take place on Friday in the Parliament and the actual venue for something interesting to happen was the Gaddafi Stadium, Lahore.
He was obviously referring to the cricket test match between Pakistan and Australia that Pakistan lost to Australia by 115 score.
Meanwhile, addressing a public gathering at the Government Post Graduate College in Mansehra, Prime Minister on Friday said the opposition parties were trying to blackmail him over corruption references against them.
While castigating all the three main heads of the opposition parties, Asif Ali Zardari, Shahbaz Sharif and Maulana Fazlur Rehman, the prime minister said they only wanted the cases against them to be closed which he would never allow.
The political turmoil comes as Pakistan faces a recurring economic crisis, and Khan's government is banking on the International Monetary Fund (IMF) to release the next tranche of a $6bn rescue package to shore up dwindling foreign currency reserves.
Khan, a former captain of Pakistan's national cricket team, came to power in 2018, after the leaders of the country's two mainstream parties were discredited by accusations of corruption.
Political analysts say the country's powerful military had supported Khan's rise to power, and that the generals have now become disenchanted with his leadership. Khan has denied receiving backing from the military.
During the latest power struggle, the military has said it would remain neutral, leaving it to political parties to decide Khan's fate.
Opposition leader Shehbaz Sharif, from the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz, took aim at Asad Qaiser, the speaker of the lower house, for adjourning the no-confidence proceedings until after the weekend.
"We strongly protest it," Sharif told a news conference on Friday.
Bilawal Bhutto Zardari, leader of the rival Pakistan People's Party, described the speaker as acting like a "personal servant" of the prime minister.
The speaker said in a live telecast that he adjourned the proceedings in order to conform with a longstanding tradition to refrain from carrying out parliamentary business on the first day of a session convened shortly after the death of an MP.
In recent weeks, more than 20 legislators deserted Khan, leaving him short of the minimum 172 that he needs for a simple majority in parliament. Political analysts expect Khan's supporters to use the weekend to persuade some of the turncoats to return to the fold.
Meanwhile, an IMF review that was scheduled for this week has yet to happen, and undermined by political uncertainty, the rupee remains under pressure, with the central bank's foreign currency reserves having fallen to $14.9bn as of March 18.