Khan’s party is losing a key vote in the Punjab assembly despite winning a by-election there in a landslide victory earlier this week.
Protests took place in major cities across Pakistan to denounce what they described as “stealing” former Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan’s party’s mandate in the Punjab Provincial Assembly.
Khan’s Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) party lost a key vote in the local assembly in Pakistan’s most populous province of Punjab on Friday despite winning a by-election there earlier this week.
The vote was held to determine whether the province’s acting prime minister – Hamza Sharbaz Sharif, son of the country’s prime minister, Shehbaz Sharif – enjoyed the support of a majority of MPs in the local parliament.
Sharif retained his post in another blow to Khan, whose PTI party and its allies had hoped to form a new provincial government in Punjab.
“They stole Imran Khan’s mandate. You have betrayed the nation. People will not tolerate that. We’ve tolerated this for too long,” protester Shazia Imran told the Associated Press in Karachi, Pakistan’s largest city.
Twenty seats were up for grabs in the Punjab by-election, seen as a test of popularity for the former international cricket star, who was sacked by a no-confidence vote in April.
The bloc won 15 of the seats in the 371-strong provincial assembly, with Sharif’s Pakistan Muslim League-N (PML-N) winning four and one to an independent.
In Friday’s vote, Khan’s candidate for prime minister, Parvez Elahi, initially won 186 votes, but provincial assembly deputy speaker Dost Muhammad Mazari invalidated 10 of those votes for violations of voting rules.
Under Pakistani law, votes become invalid when lawmakers vote against their party’s directions.
In a statement aired on national television, Mazari announced that 10 Pakistan Muslim League MPs led by Shujaat Hussain, a Khan ally, had voted against demands from their leader Hussain, who had allegedly asked them to abstain .
In the end, Hamza Shahbaz Sharif won 179 votes on Friday and retained his post. Khan claimed his opponents had resorted to political machinations and urged his compatriots to protest Mazar’s verdict.
Khan has claimed the no-confidence vote that removed him was a conspiracy by the United States – a charge both his successor and Washington deny.
He wants the new Prime Minister Sharif to call early parliamentary elections to see who is more popular in Pakistan.
Sharif has refused to take up the challenge, saying the next elections would be held promptly in 2023.