Pakistan elects center-right prime minister after ousting Imran Khan with no-confidence vote

Pakistan's parliament elected Shehbaz Sharif as the country's 23rd prime minister on Monday after removing Prime Minister Imran Khan from office with a no-confidence vote Sunday, Al Jazeera reports.

Shehbaz Sharif leads the center-right Pakistan Muslim League and is the younger brother of three-time Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, who was removed from office in 2017 amid corruption allegations.

With the election of the new prime minister, a major political crisis appears to have been averted. Ahead of Sunday's no-confidence vote, Khan — a former cricket star who took office in 2018 — repeatedly claimed the vote was part of an American plot to depose him and said he would not accept the vote's results if he lost. Khan's allies in parliament blocked the no-confidence motion on April 3 in a move the country's Supreme Court quickly declared unconstitutional.

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After a tense political standoff Saturday night, the vote finally went ahead. 174 lawmakers, including several members of Khan's governing coalition, voted to oust the prime minister. 172 votes were needed to remove Khan from office.

According to Al Jazeera, lawmakers from Khan's Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) party resigned en masse ahead of Monday's vote for a new PM.