No Pakistani prime minister has ever served a full five-year term. (FILE)
Islamabad:
Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan on Saturday night rejected reports that he had fired army chief General Qamar Javed Bajwa amid the raging political and constitutional crisis in the country over a vote of no confidence against him in parliament.
Speaking to a group of journalists, Mr Khan dismissed rumors of making any change in the army leadership.
“There was no question of firing the army chief and this was not the case,” Khan told reporters after chairing an emergency cabinet meeting where it was decided that he should not resign despite the loss of the majority in the government. National Assembly and faced a possible defeat. in the vote of no confidence that he has tried to stop.
“I will do my job according to the law and in accordance with the constitution,” he told Geo TV.
The emergency cabinet meeting has taken many by surprise, as Khan has little chance of surviving the no-confidence vote against him.
Earlier, Senator Mustafa Nawaz Khokhar of the Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) called on General Bajwa to “play his role to avert the crisis”.
“If the NA speaker and the government do not act according to the clear guidelines of the Supreme Court, then General Bajwa should play his part in this crisis situation,” Khokhar tweeted.
“Yes! He should issue a statement that he supports the decision of the Constitution, Democracy and Supreme Court,” he added.
Khan, who came to power in 2018 with promises to create a ‘Naya Pakistan’, apparently lost support from the powerful military after he refused to approve the appointment of the head of the ISI spy agency last year.
He eventually agreed, but it soured his ties to the mighty military, which has ruled the coup-prone country for more than half of its 75 years and which has so far wielded considerable power in security and defense matters. foreign policy.
Khan wanted to keep Lieutenant General Faiz Hameed as spy chief, but the Army High Command handed him over by appointing a corps commander in Peshawar.
Interestingly, no Pakistani prime minister has ever served a full five-year term.
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by DailyExpertNews staff and has been published from a syndicated feed.)
