Pakistan Imposes Emergency in Khan's PTI Province — SkimNews
Get the Geopolitics newsletter
Daily geopolitics — wars, elections, sanctions, the diplomatic moves that move markets. Free.
- Pakistan's federal cabinet invoked a state of emergency on Sunday in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa under two constitutional articles dealing with security, effectively suspending the provincial government.
- President Asif Ali Zardari approved the cabinet's recommendations from a meeting chaired by PM Shehbaz Sharif, per a statement from Sharif's office.
- Sharif's cabinet cited the "provincial government's deliberate disengagement from the fight against terrorism" as the trigger for the emergency declaration.
- Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI), the party of jailed former PM Imran Khan, had governed Khyber Pakhtunkhwa at the provincial level.
- Imran Khan has been jailed for more than three years but still commands "widespread popularity across the country," per the source.
- PTI was preparing a march on Islamabad to demand Khan's release when the emergency was declared.
Why it matters: On Sunday, Pakistan's federal cabinet invoked emergency powers to suspend PTI's provincial government in KP, escalating confrontation with Imran Khan — jailed over three years — ahead of PTI's planned march on Islamabad to demand his release.
Ask SkimNews
