Imran Khan’s term as Prime Minister of Pakistan came to an end on April 10, 2022, following weeks of high political drama and several days of constitutional chaos. Khan became the first prime minister in Pakistan’s 75-year history to be ousted by a no-confidence vote. It may be recalled that no-trust motions were brought against former prime ministers Benazir Bhutto (in 1989) and Shaukat Ali (in 2006), but they did not succeed. Incidentally, none of the prime ministers in the history of Pakistan has completed a full five-year term in office.
Rumblings in the political scene began as early as November-December of 2021 with opposition parties getting together with the aim of ousting Imran Khan as prime minister. Imran Khan’s party, Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI), in the meanwhile, suffered from defections. By March 2022, things came to a head, and the no-confidence motion against Imran Khan was submitted by the opposition on March 8, 2022 in the National Assembly Secretariat as the Speaker was not in his office. The grounds for the motion against the government were charges of corruption and economic mismanagement in battling depleting foreign exchange reserves and double-digit inflation.
Imran Khan declared the Opposition’s move against him to be the result of a ‘foreign conspiracy’, and claimed that his independent foreign policy made him unacceptable to the other parties.
On April 3, 2022, the motion of no-confidence was unilaterally dismissed as unconstitutional by the deputy speaker, Qasim Suri, without putting the motion to a vote in the National Assembly. He gave the grounds of ‘security reasons’. Thereafter, invoking his powers as prime minister, Khan advised the President of Pakistan, Arif Alvi, to dissolve the assembly and call for fresh general elections. The president duly dissolved the National Assembly.
The opposition parties moved the Supreme Court of Pakistan even as the court took a suo motu cognisance of the political situation and declared that all the orders of Imran Khan and the president regarding the dissolution of the assembly would be subject to court orders. A five-member bench of the Supreme Court of Pakistan, led by Chief Justice Umar Ata Bandial in a unanimous verdict on April 7 struck down the deputy speaker’s ruling, calling it unconstitutional. The court ordered the restoration of the dissolved assembly and directed the speaker to call a session on April 9 so as to proceed with the no-confidence vote. Indeed, the Supreme Court of Pakistan and the Islamabad High Court were kept open in the night to ensure that the no-confidence motion proceeded in accordance with the Supreme Court’s order.
The no-confidence motion was passed on April 10 with 174 of the 342 members in the National Assembly voting in its favour, while members of the PTI, Khan’s party, walked out of the assembly during the vote. The proceedings were interrupted by several adjournments.
Major Reasons for Imran Khan’s Fall
Loss of political support Inside the parliament, the PTI had lost the support of its coalition allies, namely, the Muttahida Qaumi Movement-Pakistan (MQM-P), the Pakistan Muslim League-Quaid (PML-Q), and the Balochistan Awami Party (BAP). Moreover, the opposition parties also claimed to have the support of a number of dissident PTI parliamentarians.
The principal opposition parties—the Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) and Pakistan Muslim League–Nawaz (PML-N)—became vocal in their dissatisfaction with Khan and his government’s policies, declaring that there was failure of governance.
Economic distress Economic crisis seemed to be deepening with foreign exchange reserves depleting fast and double-digit inflation persisting through much of his term. As the opposition gathered momentum in its move against the prime minister, Khan announced price cuts in electricity and domestic fuel, even though there was a rise in prices internationally. These efforts further put pressure on the country’s problems of fiscal deficit and balance of payments. The value of the Pakistani rupee fell and the State Bank of Pakistan increased interest rates sharply. According to Shahrukh Wani, an economist at the Blavatnik School of Government, University of Oxford, “Part of it was the situation they inherited from the previous government and part of it was, of course, the COVID-19. But the government fell quickly into firefighting, and reforms were never taken up.”
Military’s role Imran Khan appeared to have lost the support of Pakistan’s powerful military, which had allegedly helped Khan win the 2018 general elections. Khan publicly fell out with Pakistan’s army chief over senior military appointments and policy decisions, though both the PTI and the military denied the allegations.
Former allies candidly talked about the danger in making changes to the Pakistani civil-military relations because people feel very strongly about it. Indeed, the military made it clear that it would not support Khan against the Opposition, a policy of so-called neutrality. Consequently, Khan’s parliamentary support became weak. Several prime ministers in Pakistan before Khan have also disagreed with the military over key appointments and foreign policy.
In October 2021, civil-military tensions came into the open when Khan rejected the nominee of the army chief, General Bajawa, and tried to retain Lieutenant-General Faiz Hameed as the chief of the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI). Bajwa’s nominee, was, in the end, appointed to the post, but the long stalemate served to create a bad impression and soured Khan’s relations with the military, which has so far wielded considerable power in the fields of security and foreign policy.
Khan’s attempt to recast ties with the US in the interests of neutrality was also surprising, as the US has been Pakistan’s largest trading partner and an ally, and the military was not interested in changing the position of the US as an important partner. In February, Khan visited Russia, seeking trade deals on the eve of the Russian invasion of Ukraine. While the Pakistani military backed Khan’s Moscow trip, differences intensified after Khan made certain domestic moves. Khan alleged a US-led plot to remove him as a reaction to his Russian trip and neutral foreign policy.
The letter containing the alleged US threat that Khan waived during a rally and Khan’s claim that the US had interfered with Pakistan’s internal matter made the Pakistani politics and civil-military relations worse.
There were also differences between Khan and the military over military operations inside Pakistan by the US. Khan was opposed to the military operations inside Pakistan and US-led wars internationally since the 9/11 attacks. He alleged that Pakistan’s military fought America’s war in the war on terror and suffered loss of men and material, while view of the military was that the loss was the fall-out of the Afghan war and the military had no choice.
International Angle in Khan’s Ouster
Imran Khan said that there was a US-led conspiracy to remove him because he had refused to side with the US on issues against Russia and China. He claimed that the US threatened Pakistan with ‘consequences’ if the vote of no-confidence failed, and that ‘all would be forgiven’ if Khan was removed. However, the US response was that “there is absolutely no truth to that allegation”.
The US government had supposedly been disappointed with Khan for having said in an interview in June 2021 that he would ‘absolutely not’ give military bases to the US in Pakistan for counter-terrorism operations in Afghanistan. The US was also said to have been displeased when Khan visited Russia in February 2022.
The US, of course, denies any hand in Imran Khan’s ouster.
Shehbaz Sharif, the New Prime Minister
On April 11, Shehbaz Sharif of the PML-N was elected unopposed by Pakistan’s National Assembly to become Prime Minister of Pakistan. Thus, the political uncertainty after the passage of the no-confidence motion against Imran Khan came to an end. Shehbaz, who is the brother of the former Prime Minister of Pakistan, Nawaz Sharif, was the only candidate left in the fray after former foreign minister, Shah Mahmood Qureshi, walked out, announcing that his PTI party will boycott the voting. Shehbaz was later sworn in as Pakistan’s 23rd prime minister.
How India is Affected by the Change in Pakistan
After the appointment of Shehbaz Sharif as Prime Minister of Pakistan, the Prime Minister of India, Narendra Modi, congratulated him and expressed India’s desire for peace and stability in a region free of terror, so that the focus could be on development challenges and the well-being and prosperity of people could be ensured. In response, Shehbaz tweeted that Pakistan desired peaceful and cooperative ties with India. However, he also added that peaceful settlement of outstanding disputes, including Jammu and Kashmir, was indispensable. He said that Pakistan’s sacrifices in fighting terrorism are well-known. “Let us secure peace and focus on socio-economic development of our people,” said Shehbaz.
The ties between India and Pakistan had deteriorated under Imran Khan’s tenure. The Pulwama terror attack led to retaliation by India which sent its warplanes to attack a Jaish-e-Mohammed terrorist training camp in Balakot in Pakistan in February 2019. The Indian government’s abrogation of Article 370 relating to Kashmir created further rift between India and Pakistan. Trade between the two countries which had become reduced after India increased tariffs following the Pulwama attack was altogether stopped by Pakistan after India’s policy decisions in Jammu and Kashmir in August 2019.
It may be argued that Shehbaz Sharif would be an extension of his brother, Nawaz Sharif, who still controls the PML-N from London. (Nawaz Sharif has been residing in London since after the Pakistan Supreme Court disqualified him in 2018 from contesting elections and sentenced him to 10 years imprisonment over corruption charges.) Nawaz Sharif is considered to have had good relations with Modi. However, Shehbaz Sharif in his inaugural speech in Pakistan’s Parliament said: “We want good ties with India but durable peace is not possible until the Kashmir dispute is resolved.” He raised the issue of the abrogation of Article 370 in Kashmir and alleged that the people in the Valley were bleeding and asserted that Pakistan would provide them with “diplomatic and moral support” besides raising the matter at every international fora.
It is clear that both India and Pakistan would continue to maintain their respective positions on terrorism and Jammu and Kashmir. India’s position is that it desires normal neighbourly relations with Pakistan but that the onus is on Pakistan to create a terror-free environment conducive to such an engagement. India is clear about talks and cross-border terror not going together. Pakistan considers the Kashmir issue to be central to ties between the two countries.
In any case, Shehbaz’s tenure as prime minister could be short because several opposition leaders have indicated that new elections would be held soon after enacting necessary reform, especially those related to elections. So, for any change in the Indo-Pak relations, one may have to wait for the elections in Pakistan.
Imran Khan Niazi is a former Pakistani cricketer, who led his team to win the 1992 World Cup. Soon after, he retired from cricket and joined politics. He founded the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf in 1997 and became its chairperson. He stood for election to the National Assembly in the October 2002 elections and served as a Member of Parliament from NA-71, Mianwali until 2007. In 2018, Imran Khan led his party to power in Pakistan by winning 176 seats in the elections to the National Assembly.
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