Pakistan PM Imran Khan to seek vote of confidence after senate setback

Credit: Reuters

New Delhi: Pakistan Prime Minister Imran Khan on Thursday (March 4) announced that he will seek a vote of confidence from parliament. 

This comes as the opposition raised questions over his leadership after the finance minister lost the senate elections.

"I'm going to seek a confidence motion a day after tomorrow," Khan said in a televised address to the nation.

Khan also lashed out at the opposition alliance for "making a mockery of democracy".

Khan said that the vote of confidence would be an open ballot in which members of his party and his allies were welcome to vote against him if they no longer had confidence in him.

"This is your democratic right. Just raise your hands that you don't have confidence and I will go into the opposition (benches)," he said.

Despite Khan's coalition government has a majority in the lower house of parliament, Finance Minister Abdul Hafiz Sheikh lost the election. It is believed that many members of the ruling coalition voted against the party's candidate.

Khan's party, the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaaf (PTI), became the largest party in the Senate in Wednesday's poll. But although it gained ground, interim results on Thursday showed his ruling coalition was still a few seats short of a clear majority.