Al Jazeera :
Pakistan Prime Minister Imran Khan says he will not resign, rejecting opposition calls for him to step down ahead of a no-confidence move against him in his toughest challenge since coming to power in 2018.
Pakistan’s parliament will convene on Friday to start proceedings for a no-confidence motion. It could take several days before an actual vote to decide if Khan will be removed.
The bid for a vote of no confidence has raised the risk of constitutional, administrative and economic crises amid a pending International Monetary Fund review on the next tranche of a $6bn rescue package.
The IMF review was scheduled for this week but has yet to happen.
Opposition parties filed their motion this month, saying the former cricket star had lost his parliamentary majority after some 20 of his party’s legislators defected, calling on him to step down.
“I will not resign, come what may,” Khan said in a statement late on Wednesday, saying he would not surrender without a fight and questioned why he should quit under pressure from “crooks”. Along with the defections among his party, some of Khan’s coalition partners have suggested they may join the opposition. Some political analysts and opposition members say Khan has fallen out with Pakistan’s powerful military, which has intervened in civilian politics for decades and was seen as instrumental in the success of Khan’s upstart party four years ago.
