ISLAMABAD – Prime Minister Imran Khan will seek a vote of confidence in the National Assembly today, days after the country’s ruling coalition lost a crucial Senate seat.
President Dr Arif Alvi has summoned the National Assembly to meet today at 12:15 pm for this purpose.
Khan volunteered to face the confidence vote after his Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaaf (PTI) party’s candidate was defeated in a Senate election by a former prime minister earlier this week.
The opposition candidate secured 169 votes compared to 164 for Khan’s party’s candidate, who is the incumbent finance minister.
The defeat means the government no longer has a majority in the parliamentary chamber that elects the prime minister.
Khan, who is midway through his five-year term, needs 172 votes in the 342-seat National Assembly to retain the confidence of the house. PTI has 157 MPs in the lower house. Khan was backed by 176 members when elected prime minister in 2018.
On Friday, the multi-party opposition alliance Pakistan Democratic Movement (PDM) announced that the opposition would boycott the special session.
Imran Khan is the second prime minister to go to the NA for a voluntary vote of confidence.
Muhammad Khan Junejo was the first prime minister in the parliamentary history of the South Aian country to receive a vote of confidence from the lower house of Pakistan’s Parliament.
Under the Eighth Amendment to the country’s Constitution, all prime ministers of Pakistan, from 1985 to 2008, received a vote of confidence from the National Assembly. These included the late Benazir Bhutto, Mian Nawaz Sharif, Mir Zafarullah Jamali, Chaudhry Shujaat, Shaukat Aziz, and Yousuf Raza Gilani.
