02/13/2022 Pakistan (International Christian Concern) – Imran Khan has become the first Pakistani prime minister to be ousted through a no-confidence motion. Khan had attempted to avoid the no-confidence motion by dissolving the Parliament, claiming that his opposition was collaborating with foreign influence to bring him down. On April 10th, the Pakistan Supreme Court ruled that Khan’s dissolution of the Parliament was unconstitutional. The Parliament was reassembled, and the vote of no-confidence against Khan passed. A lawyer and columnist out of Islamabad recently commented on the turbulent series of events. “It has been a historic (few weeks), with our young and fragile democracy being tested to its very limit. What we can only hope is at the end of this constitutional crisis, our democracy is left shaken but standing.”
The office of the Prime Minister has passed to Shehbaz Sharif, the opposition leader, who will serve until the next general election in 2023. During Khan’s term, Sharif criticized the former PM for poor governance and mismanaging the economy. He led the campaign to oust Khan, eventually gaining majority support in the Parliament to remove Khan from office. Now that he is Prime Minister, Sharif will almost certainly have to prioritize Pakistan’s economy. Extreme inflation has seen the Pakistani Rupee’s value plummet. Deferring investment from Khan’s vision of an Islamic welfare state to resuscitate Pakistan’s economy is optimistic news for persecuted Christians living in Pakistan. The Muslim-majority nation is not kind to religious minorities, with blasphemy laws and pro-Islamic nationalism being inflated by former PM Khan. We pray that this new government will steer Pakistan towards economic health and tolerance for the Christians living there.
