AJK election violence aftermath: Kotli SP resigns after PML-N activist released

Nawaz berates party’s campaign managers for poor showing.

KOTLI/LAHORE:

The Kotli superintendent of police resigned on Wednesday after the release of a Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) candidate who was arrested for inciting election violence.

PML-N activists in Kotli, on Tuesday, clashed with supporters of the Muslim Conference and the police, burning down the AJK Election Commission’s offices in the constituency and injuring 12 police officers.

Updated from print edition (below)

Election after-effects: PML-N activists burn down EC offices in AJK

Even as Nawaz Sharif blamed the PML-N’s own campaign managers for the party’s poor showing in the Azad Jammu and Kashmir Legislative Assembly elections, PML-N activists in Kotli clashed with supporters of the Muslim Conference and the police, burning down the AJK Election Commission’s offices in the constituency and injuring 12 police officers.

PML-N activists in Nakyal (LA-9 Kotli II) were protesting the election’s result in that constituency when they clashed with supporters of the Muslim Conference, who were also protesting. Many political analysts feel that the Muslim Conference deliberately ran strong candidates in several constituencies to ensure that the PML-N lost the election after the latter abandoned its traditional support for the former and entered AJK electoral politics directly. As police tried to break up the fighting by firing gunshots in the air, the crowd turned its anger on the police, injuring 12 of them. PML-N officials claim that the police attacked a peaceful protest.

Meanwhile, the news agency INP reports that two people were killed and ten injured in Rawalakot in clashes between several political activists. PML-N and Muslim Conference supporters have been riled up at their party’s losses in the June 26 AJK elections and blame the winning PPP for rigging the election.

Yet these charges of rigging, even as they moved PML-N supporters to violence, did not appear to convince the party’s eponymous chief, Nawaz Sharif, who blamed his campaign managers for failing to win the party’s target of 17 seats out of the 41 elected positions on the AJK Assembly.

“The PML-N had set itself a target of winning 17 seats but it has barely broken out of single digits in terms of its number of wins, which upset the party leadership,” sources familiar with the discussions told The Express Tribune.

Sources said that the PML-N was particularly perturbed at winning only four of the eight seats representing the Kashmiri diaspora in Punjab, where the party is in office. Sharif is reported to have berated his party’s senior members for allowing the PPP to win two seats in Rawalpindi.

MNAs Khawaja Saad Rafique and Perveiz Malik along with Anosha Rehman were asked by Sharif to explain the PML-N’s losses, which they were reportedly unable to do after the party chief reacted angrily to their excuse that the PPP had rigged the election.

Nonetheless, the party has decided to contest the legitimacy of the AJK elections in court. The move follows a similar decision by the MQM to challenge the election’s fairness in the Supreme Court of Pakistan.

Meanwhile, sources said that the PML-N leadership appears to be formulating a strategy to establish ties with the MQM as the latter joins the opposition after quitting the treasury benches in protest over the AJK election.  It is unclear whether the PML-N will seek a formal alliance.

The PML-N appears to be gearing up for a political showdown with the PPP, as several members of the party’s leadership were told by Sharif to increase their outreach to the electorate over the next two months.





Published in The Express Tribune, June 29^th, 2011.