Hundreds of Imran Khan supporters join protests in Hyde Park and exiled leader Nawaz Sharif’s home

Protesters in support of ousted Prime Minister of Pakistan Imran Khan gathered outside the London home of the country’s former leader Nawaz Sharif today calling for an end of state ‘corruption’.

Yesterday’s dramatic no-confidence vote in Parliament was greeted with dismay by supporters of beleaguered prime minister Khan, who has led the country since 2018.

Many demonstrators were angry as they converged in Hyde Park and outside Sharif’s home – Avenfield House in Mayfair – and vowed to oppose any ‘imported’ government.

One woman said: ‘It’s about our prime minister being hoisted out by corrupt politicians, they were corrupt before in Pakistan. He [Khan] was voted in by the people and unfortunately, due to America’s pressure, they brought all the other political parties together and hoisted him out.’

Others vowed to send ‘no remittances’ to Pakistan until Khan was reinstated as Prime Minister.

Avenfield is where Pakistan’s super-rich former prime minister, Nawaz Sharif, has lived when in London since 1993, knocking four luxury flats together to make a single mansion, now worth at least £7 million.

He shares it with his sons, Hassan and Hussain, his daughter and political heir-apparent Maryam and her husband Muhammad Safdar. The Avenfield flats form just a fraction of a London property empire owned by Sharif’s family.

Sharif’s younger brother Shehbaz, 70, submitted his nomination to be Pakistan’s next prime minister to the legislature today, his party said, after incumbent Imran Khan lost a no-confidence vote in parliament after nearly four years in power. 

Shehbaz, 70, led the bid by the opposition in parliament to topple former cricket star Khan, and he is widely expected to replace him following a vote tomorrow.

But Khan’s party also submitted papers nominating the former foreign minister as a candidate, saying their members of parliament would resign en masse should he lose, potentially creating the need for urgent by-elections for their seats.

Khan, the first Pakistani prime minister to be ousted by a no confidence vote, had clung on for almost a week after a united opposition first tried to remove him.

On Sunday, he repeated allegations that a foreign conspiracy was behind the regime change.

‘The freedom struggle begins again today,’ he said via his Twitter account, which is followed by more than 15 million and still describes him as Prime Minister of Pakistan in his biography section.

Even before the vote Khan had called for protests, which were expected to take place late on Sunday.

‘I tell all of my supporters across Pakistan, on Sunday, after Isha (evening) prayers, you all have to come out of your homes and protest peacefully against this imported government that is trying to come to power,’ he said in an address to the nation on Friday.

His government fell in the early hours of Sunday after a 13-hour session that included repeated delays and lengthy speeches by lawmakers from his Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf party.

Opposition parties were able to secure 174 votes in the 342-member house for the no-confidence motion, giving them the majority they needed to enable Monday’s vote to elect a new premier.

Khan’s former information minister Fawad Chaudhry told reporters of the plan for resignations if their nominee does not win.

The speaker would be obliged to accept those resignations that would necessitate by-elections in probably more than 100 seats.

That could plunge the country into another crisis as the election commission has previously said it would not be ready to hold elections until October.