Pakistan’s embattled prime minister faces a tough no-confidence vote Saturday waged by his political opposition, which says it has the numbers to defeat him.
A combined opposition that stretches the political spectrum from left to radically religious says it has the 172 votes it needs in Pakistan’s 342-seat Parliament to oust Imran Khan after Parliament convenes at 10:30 a.m. local time.
Khan took to national television on the eve of the vote calling on his supporters to take to the streets to protest on Sunday, an indication he believed he would lose the vote, which was ordered by the Supreme Court. The five-member bench on Thursday blocked Khan’s bid to stay in power, ruling that his move to dissolve Parliament and call early elections was illegal.
Thursday’s court decision set the stage for a no-confidence vote, likely to go against Khan after several of his ruling party members and a small but key coalition partner defected.
In an impassioned speech Friday, Khan doubled down on his accusations that his opponents colluded with the United States to unseat him over his foreign policy choices, which often seemed to favor China and Russia and defied U.S. criticism.
