ISLAMABAD, April 9 (Reuters) – Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan was ousted on Sunday following the passage of a no-confidence motion in the National Assembly, the lower house of parliament, after hours of tense confrontation between lawmakers opposition and ruling party Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI, Pakistan Justice Movement).
The motion of censure received 174 votes out of the 342 seats in the lower house, announced its president.
Parliament will now appoint a new Prime Minister and a government.
The opposition accuses Imran Khan, 69, a former star player of the national cricket team who became Prime Minister in 2018, of having failed to recover the economy, damaged by the coronavirus pandemic, and of not having held his promises in terms of transparency and control of government action.
The Supreme Court had inflicted a snub on Thursday by deeming unconstitutional his maneuver last weekend to escape a vote of no confidence from the opposition.
Imran Khan, who had lost the majority in the National Assembly following defections within the ruling coalition, had dissolved the lower house and called early general elections.
The decision of the highest court of the country had led to the restoration of the chamber and the government. (Report Syed Raza Hassan, French version Sophie Louet)