Islamabad, Pakistan – Pakistan’s National Assembly will be dissolved on August 9, three days before the completion of the five-year parliamentary term, Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif has said.
Sharif made the announcement during a dinner hosted for the members of his ruling coalition on Thursday, a senior government minister who attended the meeting told Al Jazeera on condition of anonymity.
Sharif has been in power since April last year when his predecessor Imran Khan was removed following a no-confidence vote in parliament.
The dissolution of the National Assembly sets the stage for general elections later this year.
Pakistan’s constitution says if the assembly is dissolved on time, which is August 12, the elections will take place within 60 days.
However, if the dissolution takes place even a day earlier, that period is extended to 90 days.
If the assembly is dissolved on August 9, as announced by Sharif, the elections will be held in November under the supervision of a caretaker government, as mandated by the constitution.
The names of the caretaker prime minister and other top functionaries are likely to be announced over the weekend.
In a televised address after Thursday’s dinner with political allies, Sharif said his coalition government faced many challenges when it came to power.
“Our conscience is clear. We took the country out of a storm by sacrificing our own politics,” he said.
But Sharif’s government has been accused of targeting Khan, his main political opponent, through a series of cases against him and a crackdown on his Pakistan Tahreek-e-Insaf (PTI) party.
Khan says the cases are aimed at preventing him from contesting the next elections, in which the PTI is likely to emerge as the largest party. The cricketing icon even survived an assassination attempt during a political rally in November last year.
Since May, thousands of PTI workers and supporters have been arrested after they went on a rampage over Khan’s brief arrest, attacking government and military installations.
Many of those arrested are set to be tried under military laws, a move slammed by rights groups.
Pakistan is also facing a resurgence of violence, with more than 90 attacks by the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) armed group in July alone.
The TTP, an outlawed group, is ideologically aligned with the ruling Taliban in neighbouring Afghanistan.
Pakistan’s economy, racked by record inflation and a declining rupee, remains fragile, despite securing a last-minute financial bailout from the International Monetary Fund (IMF) in June.
