Secret balloting: Masood Khan elected AJK president

MUZAFFARABAD: A former diplomat, Masood Khan, was elected on Tuesday as the 23rd president of the semi-autonomous Azad Jammu and Kashmir (AJK) region.

In a secret balloting in which members of the AJK’s upper and lower houses – the AJK Legislative Assembly and Kashmir Council – took part, Masood bagged 42 votes while the Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) candidate Chaudhry Latif Akbar got only six votes.

The 49-members of the AJK Legislative Assembly and the seven members of Kashmir Council, along with Minister for Kashmir Affairs and Gilgit-Baltistan Barjees Tahir make up the Electoral College to elect the AJK president.

All Jammu and Kashmir Muslim Conference (AJKMC), Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) and Jammu and Kashmir People’s Party (JKPP) boycotted the presidential polls.

The JKPP also took out a rally against the presidential elections in the AJK.

The AJK’s elected president Masood Khan retired from the Foreign Services of Pakistan in 2005. Before his retirement, he served as the Foreign Office spokesman, ambassador to China and Pakistan’s permanent representative to the United Nations.

Published in The Express Tribune, August 17^th, 2016.