Pakistani opposition leader says will resign if allegations of bribing lawmakers proven

ISLAMABAD: Pakistani leader of the opposition in the lower house of parliament, Shehbaz Sharif, said on Thursday he would “resign and go home” if it were proven that the opposition had offered bribes to lawmakers ahead of a no-confidence vote against Prime Minister Imran Khan, expected to be held later this month.
Pakistani opposition parties filed a no-confidence motion against the prime minister last Tuesday, the toughest challenge for the prime minister since he assumed office in 2018. 
The opposition needs a simple majority of 172 votes in the 342-seat National Assembly, the lower house of parliament, to oust the premier. Without its coalition partners and the dissidents, Khan’s party, which has 155 seats in the lower house, would fall short of the 172 needed to retain power.
On Thursday, a group of dissident lawmakers from the ruling Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) said they would vote against the prime minister. Senior federal ministers, in response, said Sindh House, where the dissident lawmakers are staying, had become a “hub of horse trading,” alleging that the opposition had offered bribes to PTI lawmakers in exchange for their votes. 
“I can say with absolute responsibility that even if a minor amount of transaction or [allegations of] selling one’s conscience, commonly known as horse trading, are proven, I will resign immediately and go home,” Sharif said during an interview on Hum News. 
Sharif said the PML-N was the largest opposition party and was in contact with various legislators who wanted to vote “according to their conscience.” He said if PTI dissidents and other lawmakers did not ask the PML-N for money, it didn’t make sense that they would demand the same from other leading opposition parties, the Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) and the Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam-Fazl (JUI-F). 
The joint opposition has a strength of nearly 163 in the lower house.
The opposition and political analysts say Khan has fallen out with Pakistan’s powerful military whose support they see as critical for any political party to attain power in the way the former cricket star’s upstart party did four years ago. Khan and the military deny the accusation.