Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif has managed to secure a vote of confidence from the National Assembly. Around 180 lawmakers reposed confidence in the prime minister.
\nBilawal Bhutto-Zardari, the chairman of the Pakistan Peoples Party and the foreign minister, tabled the resolution, on which 180 Members of the National Assembly (MNAs) voted yes, as opposed to 174 when Shehbaz was elected as the prime minister in April last year.
\nThe prime minister took the vote of confidence after the assembly rejected the money bill tabled by the government for providing funds to the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) for holding polls in Punjab and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa \u2014 on the orders of the Supreme Court.
\nWhen the bill was rejected, apparently for the first time in history, the top court \u2014 hearing a petition seeking polls simultaneously \u2014 implied that the prime minister did not have the confidence of the house.
\nIn its order, the SC stated: “In terms of the system of parliamentary democracy envisaged by the Constitution, the [prime minister] must enjoy the confidence of the majority of the NA at all times.”
\nFormer prime minister Imran Khan also won a vote of confidence \u2014 securing 178 votes, six more than required to maintain the majority \u2014 from the lower house on March 6, 2021. A special session of the NA was called after the former ruling party \u2014 Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) \u2014 faced an upset in the Senate elections.
\nAddressing on the floor of the National Assembly after securing a confidence vote, the prime minister thanked the coalition partners for reposing their trust in his leadership.
\n\u201cToday, Pakistan is facing serious challenges […] Pakistan\u2019s economy was prospering before the 2018 elections,\u201d he said while blaming the previous PTI-led government for the prevailing economic crisis.
\nThe “entire world” is aware of how RTS was compromised and the 2018 election results were manipulated. Former chief justice Saqib Nisar ordered to stop the recounting of votes when we challenged the election results.
\nReferring to the PTI chief’s \u2018foreign conspiracy\u2019 narrative, PM Shehbaz said the incumbent government is importing cheap Russian oil “which will arrive soon in the country”.
\nHe said had his government been formed as a result of a foreign-backed conspiracy, it would not have imported oil from Russia.
\n\u201cToday, the decisions of parliament are being challenged. It is not possible that a court stops the implementation of a law which has not been enacted yet,” he said, taking about the top court’s decision to stop the implementation of the bill seeking to curb the chief justice’s powers.
\n“We don\u2019t accept the decision of a three-member bench. We accept the decision of a majority of four judges,” he said while referring to the Punjab elections delay case verdict of the Supreme Court.
\nThe allied parties have decided to hold negotiations with PTI in Senate and we will send our representatives in this regard today, but talks will be held only on holding polls across the country simultaneously, he added.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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