Pakistani lawmakers will vote for a new prime minister Friday, with World Cup cricket hero and election winner Imran Khan expected to become the nuclear-armed country\u2019s new leader-in-waiting after weeks of working to form a coalition.<\/p>\n
A simple majority in the vote, due to take place in the lower house of parliament on Friday afternoon, will bring Khan one step closer to power ahead of a swearing-in ceremony set for Saturday.<\/p>\n
Khan won the July 25 election, but did not have enough seats for an outright majority, forcing him to partner with smaller parties and independents in order to form a government.<\/p>\n
His only challenger is Shahbaz Sharif, leader of the ousted Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz , who is not believed to have the necessary votes.<\/p>\n
The election was branded \u201cPakistan\u2019s dirtiest\u201d, after widespread claims in the months leading up to it that the powerful military was trying to fix the playing field against the PML-N and in Khan\u2019s favour.<\/p>\n
Khan\u2019s victory represents an end to decades of rotating leadership between the PML-N and the Pakistan Peoples Party , punctuated by periods of military rule.<\/p>\n
He and his Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf party campaigned on promises to end widespread graft while building an \u201cIslamic welfare state\u201d.<\/p>\n
The party has already formed a government in its stronghold of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, and an alliance with regional parties in the southwestern province of Balochistan.<\/p>\n
It is expected to form a coalition government in powerful Punjab province, formerly a PML-N stronghold, in coming days. Sindh province remained in the hands of the Pakistan Peoples Party .<\/p>\n
PTI candidates were also voted Speaker and Deputy Speaker of the National Assembly this week, putting Khan in a strong position to carry forward his legislative agenda.<\/p>\n
He will face myriad challenges including militant extremism, water shortages, and a booming population negating growth in the developing country, among others.<\/p>\n
Most pressing will be a looming economic crisis, with speculation that Pakistan will have to seek a bailout from the International Monetary Fund.<\/p>\n
He will also have to contend with the same issue as many of his predecessors: how to maintain a balance of power in civil-military relations.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Pakistani lawmakers will vote for a new prime minister Friday, with World Cup cricket hero and election winner Imran Khan expected to become the nuclear-armed country\u2019s new leader-in-waiting after weeks of working to form a coalition. A simple majority in the vote, due to take place in the lower house of parliament on Friday afternoon, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":39374,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[87],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-39373","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-world"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39373","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=39373"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39373\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":39375,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39373\/revisions\/39375"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/39374"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=39373"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=39373"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=39373"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}