Weekend Special: Should ex-Pak PM Imran Khan have chosen a ‘graceful exit’?
Did former Pak PM Imran Khan show sportsman spirit?
For last some days, Pakistan has been witnessing an unprecedented constitutional crisis.
After former Prime Minister of Pakistan, Imran Khan, lost majority in the Parliament, every attempt seems to have been made to ensure voting on no-confidence motion was not held.
To save the top job, Khan played the ‘foreign conspiracy’ card, accused Opposition for several things and blamed the US for no-confidence motion. He also linked it to the Russia visit. To top it all, he brought a threat letter to the fore, saying it had cipher. He also said it cannot be revealed to the public as it contains secret information about the country.
The PM also got the Assembly dissolved through President Arif Alvi. He ensured that the Speaker or Deputy Speaker do not hold the vote on the motion.
Not just this, he didn’t resign but created circumstances for the Speaker and Deputy Speaker of the National Assembly to leave theirs.
At the end, Khan’s all measures to stay in power didn’t work and he became the first PM of the country to be ousted through a no-confidence motion.
The legendary cricketer already has several firsts registered to his name, like winning the world cup for Pakistan in 1992.
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But on this field, the fast bowler couldn’t face the final showdown when he didn’t even attend the Assembly session, where voting on no-confidence motion was held to oust him.
In the whole episode, a long political drama unfolded, where nation's supreme court, army, and several others, were embroiled.
The saga seems to have brought a bad repute to the nation, which already has a long history of political showdowns between parliamentarians, army and courts. And that too at a time when it is under huge debt and facing numerous crises.
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Even PML(N) leader Maryam Nawaz had tried to school Imran Khan by saying, “Vajpayee lost the no-trust motion by one vote but didn't violate the constitution".
Now, the leader, after losing the top job, is looking to carry out protests to say foreign conspiracy is behind the fall of his government. And that he is trying to stop the forming of an "imported government".
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The kind of exit Khan has taken from the National Assembly is deplorable. Should the former PM have chosen a different path?
In a nutshell, Imran Khan’s actions in the last few days seem to have harmed his reputation badly and a graceful exit would have given him a considerable chance in the next elections. Several Pakistani journalists were also of the same view during the discussions over the departure of Khan from the top post.