There is a massive crisis brewing in our neighbouring country Pakistan. In a quick development on Sunday Pakistan Prime Minister Imran Khan shocked the Opposition by advising President Arif Alvi to dissolve the National Assembly and call for fresh elections in the next 90 days. His surprised announcement came after the Deputy Speaker of the National Assembly of Pakistan dismissed the no-confidence motion against him. Also, in a brief address to the nation, Khan asked the people of Pakistan to “Get ready for elections. The conspiracy to take down this government has collapsed,” he added.
Earlier, the Speaker also dissolved the House alleging “foreign conspiracy” and said that the no-trust motion was “unconstitutional”. Leader of Opposition Shehbaz Sharif, who is a leader of the Pakistan Muslim League-N (PML-N), who had been tipped to replace Khan if the vote had succeeded, called this act as a “black day in Pakistan’s constitutional history”.
Meanwhile, Imran Khan in his address to the nation on April 1 had accused the United States of America of meddling in the internal affairs of his country and had alleged that the opposition was conspiring with Washington to remove him because he would not take the side of the US and Europe on global issues against Russia and China. Much relief came to Khan who led Pakistan in 1992 to a cricket world cup victory when Pakistan’s military said that it is not involved in politics as Prime Minister seeks to stay in office.
The timing was appropriate for the Opposition in Pakistan to launch an attack on Imran Khan as his party Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI), which had a majority with support from Independent Members, effectively had lost its majority in the 342-member assembly last week when a key coalition partner said its Assembly members would vote with the opposition. Also, more than a dozen Members from the ruling PTI party also indicated to media persons that they would cross vote on the floor of the Assembly.
The National Assembly is a democratically elected body consisting of 342 members, who are referred to as Members of the National Assembly (MNAs); 272 are directly elected members. Seventy of these are reserved seats for women and religious minorities and are allocated to the political parties according to their proportion of the total vote.
Elections for 270 directly elected seats in the National Assembly had taken place in July 2018 and Imran Khan’s PTI emerged as the single largest party, though without an overall majority. PTI won 149 seats in the National Assembly. Following the election, nine independent candidates joined PTI. Also, in August 2018 when the Members of the 15th National Assembly took oath it marked the constitutional transition of power from one democratically elected government to another for the second time in the history of Pakistan.
When Pakistan became a country a day before India’s independence from the British Rule, formed the largest Muslim state in the world at that point of time. Soon after its independence Pakistan underwent Military coups which began in 1958. There have been numerous successful attempts since 1951. Since its creation in 1947, Pakistan has spent several decades under military rule, 1958-1971, 1977-1988, and 1999-2008.
In fact the creation of Pakistan was catalyst to the largest demographic movement in recorded history. Nearly seventeen million Hindus, Muslims, and Sikhs were reported to have moved in both directions between India and the two wings of Pakistan (the East Pakistan, now Bangladesh) amidst post independence riots. Sixty million of the ninety-five million Muslims on the Indian subcontinent became citizens of Pakistan at the time of its creation. Subsequently, thirty-five million Muslims remained inside India making it the largest Muslim minority in a non-Muslim state at that point of time.
Pakistan’s democratic fate has been scarred since its inception in 1947 with political instability. Pakistan is known to have over twenty languages and over 300 distinct dialects. The major languages which are recognised are Urdu and English as official languages but Punjabi, Sindhi, Pashtu, Baluchi and Seraiki are considered main languages. This unique diversity has ailed the country with regional tensions.
In the recent past Pakistan has also been verbally attacked by many countries in the world for harbouring ‘terrorists’, especially after Osama Bin Laden was located a few kilometres from its military headquarters by the USA and ultimately killed in a stealth operation in May 2011 in Abbottabad. With its economy dwindling, it will be a tough ask for any politician in Pakistan to bring about a turnaround.
