Sardar Attique elected as the new AJK PM

MUZAFFARABAD: Sardar Attique Ahmed Khan was elected as the prime minister of Azad Jammu and Kashmir (AJK) on Thursday after winning overwhelming support from legislators in the assembly.

Saradr Attique was elected unopposed, securing 39 of the 49 votes in the house. The outgoing prime minister Raja Farooq Haider Khan and his five supporters in the legislative assembly boycotted Thursday’s session.

The deputies, most of them belonging to Sardar Attique’s Muslim Conference, called for elections after Raja Farooq Haider stepped down from the office ahead of an impending no-confidence resolution.

The opposition parties that supported Sardar Attique included the Pakistan Peoples Party Azad Jammu and Kashmir (PPP AJK), the Peoples Muslim League (PML), and the Friends’ Group of Muslim Conference.

This is the second time in 18 months that lawmakers have voted in favour of installing Sardar Attique in the prime minister’s office. It should be noted that he is the house’s fourth leader, elected by the present legislative assembly, the five-year tenure of which would end next year.

The newly elected PM took the oath here at the president house in a ceremony largely attended by the legislative assembly’s members, politicians, civil and military officials and  by Muslim Conference  leaders.

President Raja Zulqurnain Khan, administrated the oath from him.

Sardar Attique Ahmed Khan in his address at the house, said that the AJK could not afford political polarisation due to occupied Jammu and Kashmir’s delicate situation. He also said that South Asia’s peace was dependent on  the Kashmir issue, adding that the logical end to Kashmir’s liberation struggle was their prime goal.

Attique remarked that Pakistan was passing through a crucial time period of its history, as it currently faced  several internal and external threats.

Published in The Express Tribune, July 30^th, 2010.