Politics of Pakistan
Politics of Pakistan " width="273" /> Crucial to the current crisis is understanding how Khan’s government fell. While Khan was Pakistan’s first prime minister to be ousted via a no-confidence vote, he joined each of his predecessors as prime minister in not lasting five years — the length of parliament’s electoral term — in office. Pakistan’s major opposition parties had been clamoring for Khan’s exit since he came into office — calling him “selected” by the military as opposed to “elected” — and had formed an alliance, the Pakistan Democratic Movement (PDM), in the fall of 2020 for that purpose. This spring, the opposition gained traction. On the surface, the opposition blamed governance and economic failures under Khan. But the underlying reason their maneuvers were successful was that Khan had lost the support of Pakistan’s military, which helped him rise to power. Several factors were responsible for the fracture between Khan and the military, who previo