By Staff Reporter
MUZAFFARABAD: The Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz moved to consolidate a commanding lead in the Azad Jammu and Kashmir Legislative Assembly on Sunday, as early results from the second phase of polling put it ahead in the large majority of contests, including the refugee seats scattered across Pakistan.
By late Sunday night, the Election Commission had formally confirmed results in five of the twelve refugee constituencies, with the PML-N taking four and the Pakistan Peoples Party one. Unofficial counts pointed to the PML-N winning as many as ten of the twelve refugee seats overall, along with at least two of the seven territorial constituencies where voting had finished. The PPP was on course for two territorial seats and two more among the refugee constituencies.
Combined with results from the first phase in Mirpur, provisional figures suggested the PML-N had taken 23 of the 32 seats contested so far, against nine for the PPP.
Voting had originally been due across nine territorial constituencies — five in Muzaffarabad district and two apiece in Neelum and Jhelum Valley — as well as all twelve refugee seats. But the Election Commission was forced to postpone polling in LA-27, Muzaffarabad-I (Kotla), until Tuesday after landslides and severe weather closed the Neelum Valley road and cut off access for polling staff and ballot material. A similar decision affected 71 of the 174 polling stations in LA-28, Muzaffarabad-II (Lachhrat), where voting has also been pushed back to Tuesday.
Elsewhere in the constituency, and in other affected areas, voting went ahead but was disrupted by late-arriving staff and materials, prompting the commission to extend polling in territorial constituencies by an hour. Voting in the refugee seats closed as planned at 5pm.
Violence mars polling day
The vote was overshadowed by outbreaks of violence, including clashes involving firearms between PML-N and PPP supporters, and at least two reported deaths — one in Neelum, one in Muzaffarabad — during the day’s polling. Attempts were made to disrupt voting in parts of Muzaffarabad city, though balloting continued in most neighbourhoods.
The most serious flashpoint was in LA-31, Muzaffarabad-V (Khawra), where clashes broke out between rival party workers in Union Council Katkair. The PPP said one of its workers, Syed Mushtaq Shah, was killed in an attack by PML-N supporters. The PML-N denied this, saying the man had died of a cardiac arrest following a scuffle between the two sides. Neither account has been independently verified.
PPP candidate and outgoing Legislative Assembly Speaker Chaudhry Latif Akbar wrote separately to the AJK chief election commissioner alleging security lapses, gunfire, interference with polling and the obstruction of his party’s polling agents. He said there had been an attempt on his own life, in which Advocate Syed Mumtaz Hussain Naqvi was injured, and called for an investigation and prosecutions. The Election Commission had not responded to his letters by the time of writing.
Separately, a vehicle carrying voters home from the polls in Neelum was involved in an accident; twelve people were reportedly injured, three of them seriously. A police officer on election duty also died of a heart attack during the day.
Refugee seats declared
Official results released late on Sunday confirmed PML-N candidates Muhammad Aamir Shah, Syed Shaukat Ali Shah, Muhammad Yasin Lone and Muhammad Ahmad Raza Qadri as winners in Kashmir Valley-II, III, IV and V respectively. In Valley-II, Shah defeated independent candidate Saba Diwan by 1,804 votes to 1,523. In Valley-III, Shaukat Ali Shah beat the PPP’s Muhammad Asim Sharif, taking 1,524 votes to 466. In Valley-IV, Yasin Lone saw off the PPP’s Javed Butt, 1,276 votes to 563. In Valley-V, Ahmad Raza Qadri defeated the All Jammu and Kashmir Muslim Conference’s Mehrun Nisa, 2,308 votes to 740.
The PPP’s sole confirmed win among the declared seats came in Kashmir Valley-VI, where Abdul Majid Khan — standing unopposed by the PML-N — took the seat with 3,448 votes against 823 for the Muslim Conference’s Khawaja Muhammad Dilawar.
Unofficial counts suggested the PPP had also taken Valley-I through Amir Abdul Ghaffar Lone, while the PML-N was reported to have swept all six Jammu refugee seats, through Nasir Hussain Dar, Chaudhry Ismail, Sahibzada Ahsan Raza, Maryam Javed, Zeeshan Ali and Raja Muhammad Siddique.
In the territorial contests, PML-N regional president Shah Ghulam Qadir held a narrow unofficial lead in LA-25 (Neelum-I), while the PPP’s Mian Abdul Waheed was ahead in LA-26 (Neelum-II). The PPP’s Sardar Mukhtar Abbasi was reported to have beaten the PML-N’s Barrister Iftikhar Gillani by close to 2,000 votes in LA-29 (Muzaffarabad-III). The PML-N’s Raja Saqib Majeed was said to have defeated the PPP’s Chaudhry Latif Akbar in LA-31, while the party’s Dr Mustafa Bashir Abbasi reportedly beat the PPP’s Mubashar Munir Awan in LA-30 (Muzaffarabad-IV). In LA-33 (Leepa), the PPP’s Deevan Ali Chughtai was reported to have defeated the PML-N’s Chaudhry Muhammad Rasheed.
Former prime minister Raja Farooq Haider and the PPP’s Sahibzada Ashfaq Zaffar were locked in a tight race for LA-32 (Muzaffarabad-VI), while in the partially-polled LA-28 (Lachhrat), the PML-N’s Chaudhry Shahzad Mahmood was said to be leading against the PPP’s Syed Bazil Ali Naqvi.
Refugee voters cast ballots at stations set up across Punjab, Sindh, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Balochistan and Islamabad, including in Chakwal, Jhelum, Rawalpindi, Sialkot, Sargodha, Attock, Hyderabad, Quetta, Peshawar and Dera Ghazi Khan. Turnout was generally low: in Mohmand, not a single voter appeared at the designated polling station, while in Dera Ghazi Khan a lone registered voter cast her ballot at a school in Maumori that had been set up specifically for her. One divided refugee seat, Jammu-VI, spans Punjab, Islamabad and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa; Valley-I is split between Sindh and Balochistan; Jammu-I is shared across Balochistan, Punjab and Sindh; and Valley-V spans Punjab and Islamabad.
PPP alleges organised rigging
PPP chairman Bilawal Bhutto-Zardari renewed his party’s accusations of foul play, saying the PML-N — its coalition partner in Islamabad — was “robbing the votes of the people of Azad Kashmir through bullets, batons and coercion.” Writing on X, he condemned the attack on Chaudhry Latif Akbar, blaming “miscreant elements of the PML-N” and linking it to the death of Mushtaq Shah in the same constituency. He also alleged that PPP MNA Salahuddin Junejo was shot and injured at the Mustafaabad polling station in LA-31 by armed PML-N workers, and said police had failed to intervene despite repeated requests for help. He called for arrests over both incidents and the killing of Shah.
“The PML-N has crossed all limits. Attacks are taking place on our voters and the president of the state,” Bhutto-Zardari said in a further statement.
PPP leader Nayyar Hussain Bokhari said eight party workers had been injured during the elections and described a “state of lawlessness” in AJK. Fellow party figures Nadeem Afzal Chan and Punjab MPA Hassan Murtaza made similar claims in separate media appearances. Chan said the party’s election cell had lodged 15 complaints with the AJK Election Commission, adding: “We have provided the government with clear evidence of rigging but the PML-N has not responded to the PPP’s concerns. The PPP cannot declare these elections free and fair.”
The party’s AJK Election Cell later said it had submitted 25 complaints from 11 constituencies on polling day and had received no written response or update on any investigation. In a follow-up letter to the chief election commissioner, cell in-charge Abdul Shakoor called for an immediate written status report on each complaint, saying the party needed a formal reply to determine its next legal and electoral steps.
PML-N rejects rigging claims
PML-N figures dismissed the allegations at a joint press conference in Islamabad. Federal minister Amir Muqam said complaints should be pursued through legal channels rather than public rhetoric, adding: “Making allegations without evidence does not change election results. The people’s verdict should be accepted with an open heart.” He pointed to the PPP’s earlier complaints over the first-phase Mirpur elections, saying the party had initially objected to four constituencies before narrowing this to two, and that an inquiry committee examining those complaints had found nothing substantial so far. He credited the PML-N’s Mirpur performance to its record in government and said the AJK public would again back Nawaz Sharif and Shehbaz Sharif’s leadership.
Prime Minister’s adviser Rana Sanaullah said polling had been completed peacefully at around 95–96 per cent of stations, with counting under Election Commission supervision, and put turnout at roughly 50 per cent. He said polling hours had been extended by an hour in some areas because of terrain and weather, and defended unusually high turnout in some villages as a product of tight-knit local demographics rather than manipulation.
On the day’s disorder, Sanaullah said only three significant incidents had taken place. He described the episode involving Latif Akbar as a verbal altercation rather than an attack or exchange of gunfire, and said the death of Mushtaq Shah appeared to follow a medical emergency amid a local dispute, urging restraint pending a formal investigation. On the LA-31 incident, he said Salahuddin Junejo had entered polling stations accompanied by security personnel, prompting resistance from local residents that led to an exchange of fire — a matter he said should be investigated by the relevant authorities.
Prime minister orders inquiry
AJK Prime Minister Faisal Mumtaz Rathore ordered the chief secretary and inspector-general of police to secure the immediate arrest of those responsible for the attack on Latif Akbar and to ensure they were prosecuted. He said inadequate security during the poll undermined both democratic values and the dignity of the state, and called for a swift, transparent investigation.
Polling in the remaining constituencies — Kotla and the outstanding sections of Lachhrat — is due to take place on Tuesday, August 4.
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