Pakistan Political Crisis -The Fall of Imran Khan
In the history of Pakistan, none of their Prime
Ministers completed the full 5- year term. When Imran Khan
became Prime Minister, people believed that he would be the Prime
Minister to complete his full term 5 year, but Imran Khan’s
government has fallen now.
How and why, it’s happened? come let’s know
Pakistan Prime Minister, the former captain and World Cup winner of
Pakistan Cricket team has been ousted from power after losing the vote of
No-Confidence in Parliament.
Let’s start with the beginning. While India had the General
Election in 2019, Pakistan had their General Election the year before, in 2018.
Traditionally, there have been main parties in India for a long time, Congress
and BJP. In Pakistan’s 2018 General Elections, two traditional
parties faced off. Pakistan Muslim League Nawaz (PMLN) with Nawaz
Sharif’s brother Shahbaz Sharif at the helm and Pakistan People’s
Party (PPP) with Bilawal Bhutto Zardari heading it. Along with them,
there was a third contesting party Pakistan Tehereek-E-Insaf (PTI), the
name means “Movement for Justice” and this party was being led by Imran
Khan.
Imran Khan is a Famous Pakistani cricketer, he led Pakistan to victory
in the 1992 cricket World Cup. The only World Cup won by Pakistan till
now. If you look at Pakistan’s political situation in 2018, Imran Khan
was being said to be new hope.
Nepotism and Curruption Factor-
The two traditional
parties were accused of nepotism and corruption. PPP’s chief,
Bilawal Bhutto Zardari, is the son of the former Prime Minister Benazir
Bhutto, and the former President Asif Ali Zardari. And Benazir
Bhutto is the daughter of the former PM, Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto.
On the other side, PMLN Party’s image was painted with
accusations of corruption and black money. In 2017, Nawaz sharif was
removed from post of PM by the Supreme Court of Pakistan. There was an
allegation of corruption against him after the Panama Paper Leak and
there were several other corruption cases too. In July 2018, he was
sentenced to 10-years in jail on charges of purchase of upscale
apartments in London. Six months later, he was again sentenced to 7-years
imprisonment and a fine of $25 million, because he couldn’t prove
how he got the ownership of a Steel mill In Saudi Arabia.
Rise Of Imran Khan’s PTI-
In the midst of such news, it was time for Imran Khan
to stood up. He asked the people to vote for him and he promised that there
would be no corruption and no nepotism. For many people, Imran Khan
across as the last hope for Pakistan. At the same time, he had some
critics too. Imran Khan is an Oxford Graduate, he played international
cricket, he had 3 love marriages. The first was with a British Jewish
billionaire’s daughter. It was an inter-religious marriage. After reading this,
you’d assume that he’s very open-minded, that he would be a secular, liberal
person.
Imran Khan was asked if he supports the rights of Ahmadi
Muslims, he answered that he doesn’t consider the Ahmadis to be Muslims.
That he considers them non-Muslim. Some of us don’t know, Ahmadi Muslim,
consider Mirza Ghulam Ahmad to be a prophet. Once Imran Khan said, “A
person who doesn’t believe our Prophet to be the last Prophet, he is not a
Muslim”. And in this election campaigns, he had heavily defended Pakistan’s
blasphemy laws. Pakistan’s Article 295C, provides for the death penalty
for those who malign Prophet Mohammed.
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Jingoistic Nationalism
Imran Khan used
right-wing jingoistic nationalism too. Nationalism is loving
one’s country. Jingoistic Nationalism is when one starts hating other
countries. Despite of all this, in the 2018 General Elections, Imran
Khan’s party PTI, was topped. They won 155 seats; 4
times more than they won in the previous elections in 2013. Imran Khan
really gave an amazing performance. Because of corruption and nepotism, both
traditional parties lost terribly. Shahbaz Sharif’s PMLN won 84
seats and on the 3rd, spot was Bilawal Bhutto Zardari’s PPP
with 56 seats.
These details are
important to understanding the current political crisis. So, there are 342
seats in Pakistan’s National Assembly in total. The majority mark is 172.
Despite being the No 1 party, PTI couldn’t cross the 172 marks,
they had only 155 seats in their hand. Imran Khan formed a collation
with some small parties and dependent parties and with their help, he could get
178 seats. Doing so helped him form a government, but he was only
slightly beyond the majority mark. Only 6 seats more than the majority mark. It
wasn’t a strong government and so we are come to the present scenario.
Way to No-Confidence
On 8th march, about a month ago the senior
leaders of the opposition parties, presented to the National Assembly.
Their demand for a No-Confidence vote against Imran Khan. The thing is that,
over the last few years, almost all opposition parties in Pakistan have
joined forces. They created an alliance called the Pakistan Democratic
Movement (PDM). This alliance is a catch-all collation. There are no set
ideologies of this alliance. It has parties of all kinds. From the left wing to
the extreme right wing. Secular parties like Balochistan National Party
and National Party and parties like Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam and Jamiat
Ahle Hadith such religious conservative parties too. Also, Pakhtunkhwa
Milli Awami Party a party that talks about Marxism and democratic socialism
and parties like Pakistan Muslim League (Nawaz) who talks about
free-market capitalism. They are all in it.
This alliance began joint opposition rallies about 1.5 years
ago and raised the issue of the people. They talked about problems that
Pakistan Faces even today. Nawaz Sharif’s daughter, Mariyam Nawaz,
addressed the rallies, saying that Imran Khan has taken away jobs from the people.
People don’t even have food to last them 2 days. Bilawal Bhutto Zardari
said that Pakistan’s farmer is straying and the youth of the country is
furious. There were large crowds at these rallies. Overall, inflation,
unemployment, power cuts, businesses closing down, were the issues used by the
opposition against Imran Khan.
And so, we get to March 2021. Pakistan’s Finance
Minister, Abdul Hafiz Sheikh, contested elections for the Senate.
There is a Senate in Pakistan, it is equivalent to India’s
Rajya Sabha. But there are some differences between India’s and Pakistan’s
legislative structures. The National Assembly votes for the elections to the
Senate and Pakistan’s National Assembly is equivalent to India’s Lok
Sabha.
Abdul Hafiz Sheikh lost Senate seat even though Imran Khan campaigned
for him. It was won by the PDM candidate Yusuf Raza Ghilani, a former
Prime Minister of Pakistan. This was a major shock to Imran Khan’s
government. The finance minister of the government lost the elections, even
though PM Imran Khan was campaigning for him.
The opposition used this to ask Imran Khan to resign. Because
Imran Khan had lost the confidence of the National Assembly. Seeing this
happen, Imran Khan called for a Voluntary Vote of Confidence. He asked the
Parliament to vote to see if his government should continue to be in power or
not.
Whether a majority of the MNAs, members of the
National Assembly, support him or not. In India, we refer to them as MPs,
Member of Parliament. While they call them MNAs Members of National Assembly.
This was the second time in Pakistan’s history, when a Prime Minister
asked for a vote of confidence in the National Assembly.
In this vote Imran Khan proved his majority with 178
votes once again. It was clear that the MNAs with whom Imran Khan had formed
the Government, all of them still supported his government. But now 1 year
later, the table have turned. This time, instead of Imran Khan, the opposition
demanded a vote of confidence. They presented this demand on 8th
March.
Arrest of Opposition
On the 10th March, Islamabad Police,
raided the Parliament lodges. Opposition politicians were dragged away
and arrested by the police. The opposition protested against the government
because of this incident for this brutality. The way the opposition politicians
were treated is very shameful.
The Interior Minister of Pakistan claimed that it was
important to do so, because the members of the opposition were bringing in
crowds to the Parliament. They were calling in mobs. He claimed that JUI-F
brought in 70 workers, while no one is allowed to have a private militia. In
the midst of all this, Pakistan’s Army, which has a large influence on Pakistan’s
Politics.
Pakistan Army Neutral View
Pakistan’s Army locked at this situation and decided to be neutral.
They didn’t take any-side, this angered Imran Khan. In his
speech, he said, “Only animals remain neutral”. This was a big blow to
Imran Khan, because it was believed that he was in power because of Pakistan’s
Army and ISI’s support and was keeping opposition in check.
Sindh House Game
Then on 18th
March, came another blow to Imran Khan. His party members started revolting
against him. PTI’s rebel MNA, Raja Riaz, told news outlets, that
about 24 politicians in PTI, were ready to leave their party. It meant
that without their support, Imran Khan’s government would fall. He said
that most of those politicians were in the Sindh House in Islamabad.
After this interview, Imran Khan replied by saying that the Sindh House
where the Politicians were staying at, had become centre for Horse-trading.
When the news reached more people, Imran Khan’s Supporters,
The PTI party workers, went to the Sindh House in a group, raised
some slogans in favour of Imran Khan and accused the rebel MNAs to have sold
off their conscience. They climbed over the wall and entered the Sind House.
The next day, on 19th March, Imran Khan Said that the rebel
politicians in his party have agreed to stay with the party. On 20th
March, Imran Khan gave them an offer; if all of them back to PTI,
they would be forgiven.
Chance for Opposition
But on 22nd March, the rebel MNAs
rejected the offer of forgiveness. They said that the Prime Minister had
stopped listening to the people. Inflation is on a steep rise in
the country. There are more and more difficulties for the masses. Pulses,
flour, butter the prices of all are rising. The rebel MNAs were
issued show cause Notices by Imran Khan’s government.
According to the Article 63A of Pakistan’s
Constitution, the MNAs of a party aren’t allowed to easily defect to
another party. There are many restrictions on that. But these MNAs
replied that they hadn’t left the party. They haven’t left PTI and
neither did they joined another party. For Imran Khan, the problem was that,
even if the MNAs didn’t defect to another party. Even if they were
disqualified, Imran Khan would still fall short of the majority mark.
More Problem ensued on 23rd March. Till
then, politicians of Imran Khan’s party were creating problems, but
starting then, the collation parties started creating problem too. Three
Collation parties started saying that they would stop supporting Imran
Khan’s government. The first was the PML-Q, a breakaway faction of
the Pakistan Muslim League, the second MQM-P and third was the BAP
(Baluchistan Awami Party). They had a total of 17 seats.
What could Imran Khan
done to save his government?
Final Over
Then Imran Khan tried to woo the collation parties. On
28th March, the PML-Q leader was offered the post of Punjab’s
CM. The post of the Chief Minister of that state was offered to the leader
of this collation. By doing so, he retained PML-Q’s favor. MQM-P was offered the Ministry of ports and shipping, but on 30th March,
this party signed an agreement with the opposition. Imran Khan replied to this
by saying that he plays till last ball. That he would fight till the last ball
to save his government.
Foreign Involvement Conspiracy
After this point in time, Imran Khan, starting
building conspiracy theories about foreign involvement. He said that because he
had gone to Russia, America was infuriated over his Russian
visit, that’s why America is trying to topple his government. In fact,
he claimed that all the opposition members had teamed up with America.
That they have tied up with the USA to overthrow his
government. The US State department and the opposition refuted this
accusation. They claim that Imran Khan making things up. That is
something that the leaders of many countries resort to. Once they have failed
and there are no more excuses, they start blaming foreign countries.
After this, came 3rd April. The day the Vote
of Confidence was supposed to be held in the Assembly. On this day Imran
Khan didn’t appear before the National Assembly. But his conspiracy
theory about foreign involvement was now taken up by his Law Minister too. The Deputy
Speaker of National Assembly, was from his party said that, because there
is foreign involvement, there cannot be a No-Confidence Vote based on that. He
invoked Article 5 of Pakistan’s Constitution. It states that No-Confidence
vote is illegal if there is an involvement of foreign powers. There was no
solid evidence supporting it. 2 days later, it was reported that on that
day, the Speaker of the National Assembly wasn’t present. And it was
said by the Deputy Speaker. And the Speaker wasn’t present
because he wasn’t in favour of the Article 5 ruling.
After this ruling, Imran Khan advised the President
of Pakistan Arif Alvi, to dissolve the entire Assembly and conduct
fresh elections in Pakistan. Their President did so. Because the President
is like rubber stamp, he doesn’t have many powers.
Supreme Court of Pakistan’s Order
But the Chief Justice of Pakistan’s Supreme Court,
took suo moto cognizance of this matter. Meaning, he brought this matter to Supreme
Court. Supreme Court didn’t prolong the proceeding. Neither was the Supreme
Court cowed by the government. Rather Supreme Court showed brilliant
independence of the Judiciary. On 7th April, a five-judge
bench of Supreme Court passed a unanimous verdict.
They said that the actions of Imran Khan’s government
were unconstitutional. They could not dismiss the No-Confidence Vote
with such tactics. The fresh elections being called for was declared null and
void by them. And the demand of the opposition parties for Vote of Confidence,
was held valid and given permission to be held.
The Final Ball
Then came 9th April, the day of the Vote
of Confidence. As expected, Imran Khan’s government lost this vote. The
majority mark was 172 and the opposition won 174 votes.
An interesting fact here, Imran Khan actually became the Prime Minister
in Pakistan, to be ousted by a No-Confidence Vote. Strictly speaking, if
a Prime Minister needs to be removed before the end of term, Constitutionally,
this is the only way to do so.
In a way, this political crisis in Pakistan is good
news for Pakistan’s democracy, Supreme Court acted independently.
There was no interference from army. And the Prime Minister was removed constitutionally.
This is the fall of Imran Khan’s first term of Power. On
April 11 finally Shehbaz Sharif takes the Oath as 23rd Prime
Minister of Pakistan. The opposition select him as the New Prime Minister
of Pakistan.
