Amid a massive domestic political crisis, Pakistani President Arif Alvi has dissolved the country's parliament.
Alvi agreed to Prime Minister Imran Khan's advice to dissolve the National Assembly, the presidential secretariat said in a statement on Sunday.
An early parliamentary election must therefore take place in 90 days at the latest.
Shortly before, events in the country had overturned.
A parliament speaker failed to hold a no-confidence vote against Khan scheduled for Sunday over alleged unconstitutionality.
Shortly thereafter, in a video message, Khan asked the president to dissolve parliament and hold new elections.
Growing criticism of the economic situation
The opposition declared the actions of the speaker of parliament to be unconstitutional and called for a vote of no confidence in Khan to be held in parliament.
Observers had assumed that the 69-year-old Khan would lose this because he only had a thin majority in parliament and coalition parties and his own party members had recently turned their backs on him.
Because of the economic situation, he sees himself exposed to growing criticism.
The opposition parties had called on the former prominent cricketer to resign ahead of Sunday's vote of no confidence.
Because the vote was not held, they now want to appeal to the Supreme Court.
In addition, the opposition will start a sit-in in parliament, said their leader, Bilawal Bhutto Zardari.
Kahn had recently accused the United States of operating his overthrow.
He spoke of a foreign conspiracy to disempower him.
Several anti-American protests followed the statements.
The government in Washington rejected the allegations.
Political observers said Khan was elected prime minister in 2018 with the backing of Pakistan's very powerful military.
Later he lost favor with the generals because of various disputes.
Khan denies ever having been promoted by the military.