Key ally quits Pakistan premier’s cabinet

Bloomberg

Pakistan’s Prime Minister Imran Khan has lost the support of a major coalition partner, paving the way for the former cricketer’s likely ouster after completing a difficult three-and-half years in office.
The Muttahida Qaumi Movement-Pakistan, the Karachi-based party known as the MQM, is exiting from Khan’s cabinet and it is withdrawing its support to the government, said Convener Khalid Maqbool Siddique at a news conference on Wednesday. Another ally, Balochistan Awami Party or the BNP, had withdrawn its support to the government. Both the parties together have 12 members in parliament’s powerful lower house.
Khan’s Tehreek-e-Insaf party has lost its slim majority in the National Assembly after the MQM and BNP quit the coalition, local media reported. The opposition parties, which were about 10 members short of winning the no-confidence vote against the premier, now have the backing of more than 172 members needed to win the vote.
The speaker has not announced a date for the vote but local media reports say it’s likely to be held on
Sunday.
The opposition is also banking on support from disgruntled lawmakers from Khan’s party to push through the no-confidence vote against the premier.
Khan, who has been critical of the US and its other former allies while drawing closer to Russia and China, has hinted at an “international conspiracy” to remove him from office. He waved a piece of paper at a public rally on Sunday, claiming he had received a letter threatening his government from a “foreign power” without revealing the details. On Wednesday, shared the content of the letter with his cabinet members.
Khan was scheduled to make a televised address to the nation on Wednesday. The prime minister won’t resign and he will fight to the end, his interior minister Sheikh Rasheed Ahmed said at a news conference earlier.
The opposition grouping is led by former president Asif Ali Zardari’s Pakistan People’s Party and former prime minister Nawaz Sharif’s Pakistan Muslim League. Khan’s lawmakers won’t be voting on the no-confidence motion.
The joint opposition named Shehbaz Sharif, the brother of Nawaz Sharif, to be the next prime minister after winning the vote against Khan.