Islamabad: Pakistan PM Shehbaz Sharif won a trust vote in the 342-member National Assembly, with 180 lawmakers reposing “full confidence” in him as leader of the house, as opposed to 174 when he was elected prime minister in April last year.
The resolution was introduced by the foreign minister Bilawal Bhutto-Zardari after the coalition government's money bill to fund the electoral commission for elections in the provinces of Punjab and Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa on the Supreme Court's directives was rejected by the legislature. The highest court questioned if the House had faith in Sharif after the bill was rejected.
After the resolution was tabled, voting was held with lawmakers in favour of adopting it rising from their seats. Speaker Raja Pervaiz Ashraf announced that 180 members had risen from their seats. Sharif swiped at recent orders of the SC, saying rulings that questioned parliament’s confidence in him could lead to “serious consequences”.
“It is not possible that parliament frames a law and the judiciary issues a stay order on it even before it is enforced,” he said, referring to another SC ruling that barred his government from implementing a new law that reduces the Chief Justice’s powers. He said only parliament has the right to make and amend the Constitution.