Lawmakers Quit En Masse As Pakistan Parliament Elects Sharif Pm

A mass resignation of over one hundred members of parliament will require fresh by-elections in the 342-seat National Assembly.

Pakistani lawmakers from the party of ousted Prime Minister Imran Khan collectively resigned from parliament on Monday ahead of the vote to elect a new prime minister. Khan’s Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI), or Pakistan Justice Party, withdrew the nomination of former foreign minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi as its candidate and more than 100 lawmakers walked out of the National Assembly.

The mass resignations will require fresh by-elections in well over 100 seats in the 342-seat National Assembly.

“We boycott this election according to the decision of our party, and we are resigning,” Qureshi said.

The walkout followed an impassioned speech by Qureshi who lauded what he described as Khan’s independence and refusal to bow to US pressure.

A large number of Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf (PTI) supporters held a protest rally in Lahore’s Liberty Chowk against the ouster of prime minister and party chairman Imran Khan through a no-confidence motion moved by the opposition. The charged PTI supporters, including women and children, showed their solidarity with Khan during the rally that started at 9pm local time on Sunday and lasted till 3 am on Monday.

Big gatherings were also reported from other parts of the Punjab province, including Faisalabad, Multan, Gujranwala, Vehari, Jehlum and Gujrat districts. Islamabad and Karachi also witnessed major gatherings of PTI supporters.

Protests broke out in different cities after 9 pm on Sunday and continued for several hours. Earlier on Sunday, ousted prime minister Khan tweeted that “today marked the beginning of a freedom struggle” against what he said was a “foreign conspiracy of regime change” in Pakistan.

In an attempt to galvanize his supporters, he said “it is always the people who protected their own sovereignty and democracy”. In another tweet, Khan posted an aerial view of the Lahore rally and said he never seen such a big crowd. “Never have such crowds come out so spontaneously and in such numbers in our history, rejecting the imported govt led by crooks,” Khan said.