Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan has suggested he may not accept a vote to oust him, a move he alleges was being orchestrated by the United States.
Opposition parties say Mr Khan has failed to revive an economy battered by the coronavirus pandemic or fulfil promises to make his government more transparent and accountable, and have put forward a no-confidence motion due to be voted on Sunday.
"How can I accept the result when the entire process is discredited?" Mr Khan told a select group of foreign journalists at his office.
"Democracy functions on moral authority — what moral authority is left after this connivance?
"The move to oust me is blatant interference in domestic politics by the United States."
He said the move was an attempt at "regime change".
Mr Khan, who has already lost his parliamentary majority after allies quit his coalition government and joined the opposition, urged his supporters to take to the streets on Sunday ahead of the vote.
Hours before he spoke, the head of the army, General Qamar Javed Bajwa, had said Pakistan wanted to expand its ties with Washington.
US President Joe Biden has not called Mr Khan since taking office, but the White House has denied that it is seeking to topple him.
Relations are strained in particular over Afghanistan, where Washington accused Pakistan of backing the successful Taliban insurgency that led last year to a chaotic withdrawal of US and allied forces.
Mixed signals from Pakistan on US
Yet while the government has pursued multi-billion-dollar development deals with China, the United States' strategic rival, the army appears keen not to jeopardise relations with Washington, which has in the past supplied it with billions of dollars in military aid.
Mr Bajwa told a security conference in Islamabad that "we share a long history of excellent and strategic relationship with the United States, which remains our largest export market".
He noted that Pakistan had long enjoyed close diplomatic and business relationships with China, but added: "We seek to expand and broaden our ties with both countries without impacting our relations with the other."
The US embassy in Islamabad did not immediately reply to a request for comment.
On Friday, Mr Khan said his government had handed an official protest to the US embassy.
"We now have given a demarche to [the] American embassy," Mr Khan told local television channel ARY in an interview, referring to a diplomatic note over what he described as a foreign conspiracy to oust him from power.
He had said on Thursday that a foreign country was conspiring against him after he visited Moscow in February.
Mr Khan met Russian President Vladimir Putin in Moscow on the day Russian forces invaded neighbouring Ukraine.
Ruling party members in Pakistan led a protest against the US in the north-western city of Peshawar on Friday.
In an unusual move, dozens of Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) ruling party figures, led by a provincial minister, rallied in the centre of Peshawar, chanting, "Down with America!"
"We have come out to support Imran Khan who has challenged the capitalist forces," the minister, Taimur Jhagra, told the rally.
A handful of activists from an anti-America Shi'ite group also reacted to Mr Khan's claims, holding a rally in Islamabad where they burned American flags.
Nearly 500 protesters led by a ruling party MP rallied in the southern port city of Karachi and chanted anti-American slogans.
Mr Khan's ousting would likely bring another round of instability to the nuclear-armed country, in which the military has a long record of intervening in politics.
ABC/Reuters
