What Led to the Downfall of Pakistan’s Prime Minister

First elevated to power in 2018 elections, Pakistan’s Prime Minister Imran Khan, a former cricket star, was widely seen as closely allied with the country’s powerful military, which has ruled the country for almost half of its 75-year history. Now it looks like the backing of that mighty constituency, as well as some of his political allies, is gone. His opponents, charging mismanagement of the economy, ganged up to oust him from office in a no-confidence vote in April.

The two largest opposition parties, once bitter rivals, set aside their enmity to work together. They are the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz headed by Nawaz Sharif, who’s been prime minister three times, and the Pakistan Peoples Party, led jointly by former President Asif Ali Zardari and his son Bilawal Bhutto Zardari. Together with smaller opposition groups, they planned a vote of no confidence in Parliament’s lower house in early April. In a series of events that stunned the country, however, a member of Khan’s party scrapped the vote over alleged foreign interference, Khan called a new election and President Arif Alvi, another Khan ally, dissolved parliament. But days later Pakistan’s Supreme Court reversed those moves, saying Khan had to face the vote, which he lost.