Imran Khan faced a no-trust vote today
Imran Khan has become the first Prime Minister of Pakistan to lose a no-trust vote. Not a single Prime Minister in Pakistan has completed a full five-year term since the country's independence in 1947.
Here's your 5-point cheatsheet to this big story:
- Whoever takes over from Imran Khan will still have to deal with the issues that bedevilled him - soaring inflation, a feeble rupee and crippling debt. Pakistan Muslim League-N (PML-N) leader Shehbaz Sharif is the anointed candidate.
- Mr Khan, 69, said late Friday he had accepted a Supreme Court ruling that ordered the no-confidence vote, but insisted he was the victim of a "regime change" conspiracy involving the United States. The former international cricket star said he would not cooperate with any incoming administration and called on his supporters to take to the streets.
- The next government will have to work hard to patch up relations with Washington - a key arms supplier countering Russia's trade with India.
- Local media quoted an election commission official as saying it would take them at least seven months to prepare for a national vote.
- Publicly the military appears to be keeping out of the current fray, but there have been four coups since independence in 1947 and the country has spent more than three decades under army rule.
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