Following an electoral defeat on a Senate seat this week, leader of the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf party, Prime Minister Imran Khan, has won a vote of confidence from the lower house of parliament. Al Jazeera reports that he received 178 votes of confidence in his leadership. in the 342-member National Assembly.

The opposition had, on Friday, announced that it would boycott the vote, and the benches of its 10-party Pakistan Democratic Movement, were empty except for a single seat taken by the sole member of the opposition present, Mohsin Dawar. Dawar is an independent candidate and leader in the Pashtun Tahaffuz Movement (PTM) rights group.

Al Jazeera reports that Saturday’s vote will strengthen Khan’s hold on power.

The PM’s finance minister, Abdul Hafeez Shaikh, had lost to the opposition’s Yusuf Raza Gilani in a Senate race on Wednesday. His defeat had been viewed as a blow to Khan as that vote had also taken place in the National Assembly. Khan has demanded the Election Commission conduct an inquiry into the Senate race, which is conducted by secret ballot and has reportedly long been tainted by allegations of vote buying.

Further, Khan accused the opposition of having engaged in corrupt practices in order for him to grant them amnesty in his government’s anti-corruption drive. Pakistan’s Supreme Court had this week annulled a government decree requiring the vote to be conducted by open and public ballot. Khan said, “The next step was to bring a vote of no-confidence… as a sword over my head to blackmail me into giving them [amnesty].”

Umm Muhammed Umar