Pakistan opposition asks PM Imran Khan to resign

After a brutal defeat of Pakistan Prime Minister Imran Khan-led government’s candidate Dr Abdul Hafeez Shaikh at the hands of the Pakistan Democratic Movement (PDM) candidate Syed Yousuf Raza Gilani in the Senate elections, the opposition has asked Khan “to resign in an honourable way”.

An upbeat Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) Chairman, Bilawal Bhutto-Zardari, asked Imran Khan, “If he (the prime minister) has honour then he should himself resign (from the office). Imran Khan should submit his resignation today as the demand for his resignation is no more only the opposition’s demand but it has now become a demand of the government members as well.”

He further said that Gilani’s victory was also an expression of a no-confidence on the International Monetary Fund (IMF)-dictated budget and a reaction of the people over the prevailing price hike and unemployment in the country.

Foreign minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi on Wednesday said that PM Imran Khan will seek a vote of confidence from the parliament following the results of the Senate polls.

Meanwhile, a number of other opposition leaders, including the supreme leader of the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) Nawaz Sharif, through their social media accounts on Twitter felicitated Gilani and termed his election a “glorious victory”.

PML-N president and opposition leader in the National Assembly Shehbaz Sharif, in a statement, said that Gilani’s victory was the expression of a no-confidence by lawmakers in Imran Khan’s government.

“Those who have destroyed the people and the country’s economy and the vote thieves, sugar thieves and flour thieves have been exposed,” said Sharif.

Shehbaz Sharif also presided over a meeting of the party’s parliamentary group and senior leaders in which he bitterly criticised the government’s performance, saying that he had never seen such a “worst government” in the country’s history.

PML-N vice president Maryam Nawaz also tweeted, congratulating Gilani as well as the PDM leadership.

“Well done the PML-N…. congratulations to PML-N members who upheld the narrative of Nawaz Sharif… future is yours,” said Maryam in her tweet.

In another post, she claimed that “the fake mandate has been snatched back by the people’s representatives. Their own people, despite the pressure on them, refused to vote for […] (Prime Minister) Imran Khan,” she said, adding that the premier now had no right to occupy the Prime Minister House. Vote chor (thief), leave the chair.”