Pakistan prime minister, Imran Khan

Pakistan's prime minister found to have broken the law by attempting to stop vote going ahead.

“What is happening with our democracy is catastrophic,” Khan said in his speech. “From paralysed bureaucracy to the foreign policy challenges to the broken economy, chaos is reigning supreme.” The opposition has stated its intention to hold elections in the next few months, though they are likely to be October at the earliest. They appealed to the supreme court, who overturned Khan’s decision. Fawad Hussain, Khan’s minister for information, called it a “sad day for Pakistan. The return of looters and a good man sent home.” The Islamabad high court also prepared itself to hear a late-night contempt of court case.

Khan made a last-ditch effort to cling to power, producing a document that he said proved U.S. officials had conspired against him in league with his ...

“Now we will make Pakistan again a country grounded in the law and the Constitution.” After taking office, Khan shifted Pakistan’s allegiance to China and caused consternation in Washington with some of his policies and public gestures. For the first time since the nation’s founding in 1947, it was neither a military coup nor another form of extralegal interference that cut short a prime minister’s tenure. Then the national assembly speaker announced that he was resigning to support Khan after viewing the secret document. And when it appeared that his opponents had marshaled enough votes to remove him, Khan dissolved the legislature April 3 and arranged to have the vote abruptly canceled, on the grounds that it was based on an illegal foreign conspiracy. “Today, Parliament will be writing history and defeat an elected prime minister in a constitutional manner,” he declared. Stunned and enraged, opposition leaders rushed to the Supreme Court, demanding that it overturn Khan’s actions on the grounds that they were unconstitutional and illegal. The count started just before midnight, and by 1:30 a.m., the embattled premier had been removed from office. Meanwhile, Khan spoke at a charity event and held a closed-door Cabinet meeting. Instead, pro-government members spent much of the day giving long, rambling speeches in an effort to delay the vote. Khan, in a subdued address to the nation Friday, said he would accept the decision. But in recent months, he had struggled to control rampant inflation, foreign debt and other economic woes.

The former cricket star loses a late-night no-confidence motion in parliament, maintaining an unwanted record of Pakistani prime ministers failing to ever ...

The vote means Mr Khan will no longer hold office and the country's lower house will now elect a new prime minister and government. Opposition parties were able to secure 174 votes in the 342-member house in support of the no-confidence motion, the house speaker said, making it a majority vote. After a late-night session of parliament, a majority of MPs voted for the resolution to remove Mr Khan as the country's leader.

Why it matters: While no previous Pakistani prime minister has completed a full five-year term, the former cricket star is the first to be removed from office ...

The big picture: He took office in 2018 after running as an anti-establishment politician who pledged to clear up corruption in politics. U.K. Prime Minister Boris Johnson paid a surprise visit to Kyiv on Saturday to meet with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky "in a show of solidarity with the Ukrainian people," British and Ukrainian officials said. By the numbers: The motion passed early Sunday local time in the 342-seat parliament with 174 votes — two more than was required for a simple majority, according to the Washington Post.

Pakistan's Prime Minister Imran Khan has been ousted as the country's leader following a vote of no-confidence over allegations of economic mismanagement, ...

But diplomacy on both sides led to a simmering stalemate that lasted throughout Khan's premiership, with much praise going to the Pakistani leader for his professional and peaceful conduct. Khan won a seat in parliament in 2002, but his party mostly languished in the political wilderness. They had urged Khan to resign ahead of the vote. Khan said he had been singled out by the US because, unlike his opponents, he couldn't "easily be used as a puppet by the West," with regard to an independent foreign policy. The Supreme Court's Thursday decision paved the way for Khan's removal from office. No prime minister has ever completed a full five-year term under the present constitution of 1973.