By Staff Reporter
ISLAMABAD: Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI), the party founded by jailed former prime minister Imran Khan, said on Thursday it would boycott the upcoming general election in Azad Kashmir, citing weeks of civil unrest, arrests of political workers and a blockade of food supplies to the region.
The decision was announced in a statement issued through Sardar Abdul Qayyum Niazi, PTI’s regional president and a former prime minister of Azad Jammu and Kashmir (AJK), who said the party would instead align itself with residents protesting economic hardship and demanding greater autonomy.
“Expressing unwavering solidarity with the aspirations, right to self-determination, and democratic rights of the people of Azad Jammu and Kashmir, the PTI has decided not to participate in the elections under the current circumstances,” Niazi said in the statement.
Niazi described the boycott as a matter of principle rather than political calculation, saying it reflected the party’s alignment with public sentiment rather than a strategic bid for advantage.
PROTESTS AND SUPPLY DISRUPTIONS
Niazi pointed to sit-in demonstrations underway in Rawalakot and other parts of the region, saying thousands of residents had taken to the streets over grievances that remained unresolved. He said the use of force by authorities against demonstrators had resulted in fatalities, though he did not provide a specific death toll.
He also said the suspension of food supply routes from Punjab province into AJK had caused significant economic hardship for residents, and called for what he termed an immediate and equitable resolution to the region’s problems rather than measures that risked deepening political instability.
WARNING OVER KASHMIR POLICY
Niazi said the government’s handling of the situation risked undermining AJK’s constitutional and political standing, and warned against what he described as an erosion of the distinction between Pakistan-administered and Indian-administered areas of Kashmir — a shift he said could damage Pakistan’s broader position on the Kashmir dispute.
He argued that an election held against a backdrop of street protests, restrictions on political leaders and curbs on media freedom would lack legitimacy. “The PTI will not engage in the politics of power by ignoring the voice of the Kashmiri people,” he said, adding that protection of basic rights and a credible political process remained the party’s central concerns.
CONDITIONS FOR RETURN TO THE POLLS
Niazi set out conditions under which PTI would reconsider participating in the electoral process, including the restoration of normal conditions, resolution of grievances raised by political and civic groups, and a settlement of demands put forward by the Joint Awami Action Committee (JAAC), a coalition of parties and civil society groups that has organized protests in the region. He also called for a revised election timetable to ensure a level playing field among competing parties.
He said PTI’s campaign going forward would focus on advocating for Kashmiri political rights and supporting a resolution to the JAAC’s demands, rather than contesting the vote.
Separately, PTI said it was suspending all recommendations made by the AJK Parliamentary Board on candidate nominations, meaning no further action would be taken on ticket allocations or other stages of the electoral process until the political situation stabilizes.
RIVAL PARTIES CAMPAIGN ON
Other parties signaled they would proceed with campaigning. Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) Chairman Bilawal Bhutto Zardari said he intended to visit every district in AJK as part of the party’s campaign for the 2026 AJK Legislative Assembly election, and pledged continued support for residents’ concerns.
The remarks came during a meeting with PPP’s AJK president, Chaudhry Yasin, and the party’s AJK general secretary and sitting AJK prime minister, Faisal Mumtaz Rathore, who briefed Bilawal on election preparations. Bilawal directed party leaders to intensify outreach efforts and ensure the PPP’s manifesto reached voters across the region.
In a separate development, former AJK prime minister Sardar Tanveer Ilyas announced he was joining the Istehkam-e-Pakistan Party (IPP), according to Geo News. The move followed a meeting with IPP President Abdul Aleem Khan and State Minister for Overseas Pakistanis Awn Chaudhary. Aleem Khan welcomed Ilyas by presenting him with the party’s ceremonial muffler, a traditional gesture used to mark new members joining the IPP.
PTI DISMISSES TALK OF DRIFT FROM KHAN’S CAUSE
Meanwhile, the leaders of PTI said on Thursday that securing the release of former prime minister Khan remained their central goal, pushing back against criticism that the party has drifted from its founder’s cause under pressure from the government.
In separate briefings with reporters, PTI Secretary General Salman Akram Raja and Junaid Akbar Khan, president of the party’s Khyber Pakhtunkhwa chapter, rejected suggestions that the party had been weakened or side-tracked, and said they would continue to challenge what they described as government repression.
Speaking to reporters at the Lahore Press Club, Raja said it was wrong to suggest PTI had been suppressed or silenced, adding that such criticism came from people who “have a hearing problem.”
“We are the largest social force in the country,” he said, adding that the party would keep resisting what he called a system of tyranny and oppression.
Raja said the country was approaching a boiling point and warned that “rulers will fall short of bullets” if people took to the streets, one of his sharpest warnings yet to the government of Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif.
Flanked by other party figures, including Lahore chapter president Mian Akram Usman, Raja said PTI had endured political repression, harsh treatment of its leaders and workers, and harassment of their families since Khan’s ouster from power in 2022.
He said the party leadership had not given up and remained in what he called “protest mode,” raising the possibility of a fresh round of court-arrest demonstrations known as Jail Bharo Tehreek, a tactic PTI has used before to fill jails with detained supporters in a show of defiance.
“We will also launch a Jail Bharo Tehreek, if needed,” Raja said.
Turning to the detention conditions of Khan and his wife, Bushra Bibi, both held in solitary confinement, Raja said the treatment violated laws both in Pakistan and internationally, and called on authorities to rein in what he described as their excesses. Petitions challenging the legality of the couple’s confinement are pending before the Islamabad High Court, which reserved its ruling this week on whether the case can proceed.
Khan, 74, has been imprisoned since August 2023 and has been convicted in multiple cases that he and his party say are politically motivated. The government denies the charges are politically driven and says the cases were decided on their merits by the courts.
BALOCHISTAN CONCERNS
In a separate briefing, Junaid Akbar Khan, who also chairs the National Assembly’s Public Accounts Committee, said after meeting PTI office-bearers and senior members of the opposition alliance Tehreek-i-Tahaffuz-i-Ayeen-i-Pakistan, that the party’s central objective remained Khan’s release, the restoration of democracy and what he called genuine freedom.
He described Balochistan, Pakistan’s largest but least populated province, as a guarantor of national stability, calling it one of the country’s most important and scenic regions.
Junaid Akbar said the province was rich in natural resources and enjoyed a strategic location, including the deep-water Gwadar port developed with Chinese investment, but said years of poor governance had left residents without basic necessities such as food, adequate housing, clothing and clean drinking water.
He called the situation in Balochistan highly alarming and said he was concerned about the trajectory of developments there. The province has for years faced a low-level insurgency by separatist militants alongside long-standing complaints from local political parties over the distribution of natural resource revenues.
The solution, he said, lay in the rule of law, constitutional supremacy and democratic governance, adding that political power in the province should rest with those who command genuine public support.
Junaid Akbar also referred to a meeting with Akhtar Mengal, leader of the Balochistan National Party-Mengal, describing him as an ally and saying PTI would continue to work alongside his party.
PTI has for months pressed the government to release Khan and open political space for the opposition through its TTAP alliance, while the ruling coalition led by Sharif’s Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz has said the courts, not the government, are responsible for decisions in Khan’s cases.
Copyright © 2021 Independent Pakistan | All rights reserved
