AJK elections

Considering their importance the election being held today, Thursday, July 21 in Azad-Jammu and Kashmir has received less than blanket coverage. There are 43 seats being contested and a startling 423 candidates fighting for votes. The three principal contenders are the Pakistan People’s Party (PPP), the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) and the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaaf (PTI). Sundry others will catch a local vote here and there but it is the three mainstream parties that will take the bulk of the 2,200,000 expected ballot papers. The PTI leader Imran Khan has been quick as ever to get on the rigging bandwagon and the army is to oversee the polls in the hope that whatever rigging there is — and we have to expect some — is kept below a level that might plausibly be presented as a challenge to the published outcome.

Matters did not get off to a good start with the disqualification of the speaker of the AJK Assembly Sardar Ghulam Sadiq over corruption charges. It is alleged that he inappropriately took two salaries. On the hustings doubts have been raised as to the advisability of the PPP campaign being led by Bilawal Bhutto, if only because if the PPP does badly it is going to further erode a party that has never recovered from the thrashing it got in the last General Election in Pakistan. But the PPP are currently in power in AJK, and is threatening to resort to ‘dharna politics’ if the suspicions of rigging are substantiated. It may also be looking to taking a pragmatic approach and joining hands with other parties including the PTI, and Bilawal Bhutto has endorsed the recent statement by Imran Khan that the ‘monarchic’ style of PML-N governance was a threat to democracy nationally.

Even in a voting environment as conservative as AJK and Pakistan generally, it is unwise in these volatile days to call results before they are finally confirmed. Thus far there are no predictions of a major upset and the relatively low-key campaigns by the three main parties suggest that the status-quo is at least a possibility. We watch with interest.

Published in The Express Tribune, July 21^st, 2016.

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