By Staff Reporter
MUZAFFARABAD: Pakistan’s ruling party moved a step closer to forming the next government in Azad Jammu and Kashmir on Monday, after unofficial results from the second phase of the territory’s legislative elections handed the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz 14 of the 18 seats declared, extending a lead that has now drawn sustained allegations of rigging from its main rival — and coalition partner in Islamabad — the Pakistan Peoples Party.
The tally, announced by AJK Chief Election Commissioner retired Justice Ghulam Mustafa Mughal at a press briefing in Muzaffarabad, gave the PPP four seats. It builds on the PML-N’s performance in the first phase of voting in Mirpur division on July 27, when the party took nine of 13 seats to the PPP’s four.
Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif congratulated his party’s leadership and candidates in a statement issued by his office, crediting the result to what he called the sustained groundwork of PML-N President Nawaz Sharif and the wider party organisation. The prime minister said the outcome showed voters in Azad Kashmir backing the PML-N’s record, and reiterated that development in the territory and the welfare of its residents would remain a party priority. He also welcomed the level of participation from competing parties, saying it strengthened the democratic character of the vote.
Results and a delayed constituency
Sunday’s polling covered seven constituencies in Muzaffarabad division and 12 seats reserved for refugees from Indian-administered Kashmir. Two constituencies were left unresolved: voting was pushed to Tuesday in LA-27 Muzaffarabad-I, and at 71 of 174 polling stations in LA-28 Muzaffarabad-II, after landslides and heavy weather blocked roads and stopped polling staff and ballot material reaching the areas in time.
Among the closer contests, PML-N’s Maryam Javed held off a challenge from Jammu & Kashmir United Movement candidate Usman Aleem in the LA-37 refugee seat, winning 28,547 votes to Aleem’s 22,937, according to preliminary figures released by the Election Commission. PPP candidates finished second to the PML-N in four other seats — LA-36, LA-39, LA-42 and LA-43 — while the All Jammu and Kashmir Muslim Conference placed second in two Kashmir Valley seats, and independents ran second in three further constituencies.
Justice Mughal put turnout across the seven Muzaffarabad seats at 53 per cent, a figure he described as respectable given the security climate surrounding the vote. “This was certainly a difficult election, and given the circumstances that were created, this is by no means a low turnout,” he told reporters, adding that he saw the numbers as a rejection of “the path of violence” in favour of the ballot box. He also pushed back on criticism directed at his commission, describing it as a constitutional body bound to conduct the poll without favour to any party, and said the responsibility for providing security rested with the state.
Third phase plans firm up
Looking ahead to the final stage of voting on August 10 in Poonch division, Mughal said the commission intended to proceed in three constituencies in Bagh, one in Haveli and one in Abbaspur, with two further seats in Sudhnoti district — Baloch and Palandri — still under review depending on the security picture. He said voting was not currently planned in Rawalakot city or Thorar, though preparations had been completed territory-wide and a final call would depend on the law-and-order situation closer to the date.
Asked about the AJK Legislative Assembly’s mandate expiring on August 4, Mughal said a gap in seats from one or two unresolved constituencies would not stop the incoming house from being sworn in or functioning. Polling in the outstanding LA-27 and LA-28 areas is now set for Tuesday, with the Muzaffarabad deputy commissioner declaring a public holiday across the district. Mughal said roads into the affected union councils were being reopened and additional security had been sent in, after ballot boxes were set alight at two polling stations amid the earlier disruption; polling staff have since been dispatched under escort.
PML-N claims government-forming numbers
At a separate briefing in Islamabad, Adviser to the Prime Minister on Political Affairs Rana Sanaullah, appearing alongside Minister for Kashmir Affairs and Gilgit-Baltistan Amir Muqam, said the PML-N now had what it needed to form the next AJK government. He put the party’s tally at 23 of the assembly’s 45 seats, including four of seven territorial constituencies in Muzaffarabad and 10 of the 12 refugee seats, against three and two for the PPP respectively.
Sanaullah rejected the PPP’s rigging claims outright and linked unrest around polling in Muzaffarabad to what he alleged was coordination between the PPP and the banned Joint Awami Action Committee, accusing the two of trying to depress turnout in areas favourable to his party. He said the resulting disruption had cost the PML-N several thousand votes and dismissed a PPP claim that Legislative Assembly Speaker Chaudhry Latif Akbar had survived an attempt on his life, calling it staged and noting the party had not agreed to a medico-legal examination. He also accused the PPP of breaching the Charter of Democracy, the cross-party pact under which signatories agreed not to contest each other’s electoral mandates through such measures. Questioned about PPP objections to unusually high turnout in some PML-N-won constituencies, Sanaullah said dense, tightly-knit voting communities in parts of Azad Kashmir made very high localised turnout plausible without it necessarily indicating manipulation.
PPP alleges “historical rigging,” vows to contest
PPP’s Sharjeel Inam Memon, addressing his own press conference in Islamabad alongside the party’s AJK chapter president Chaudhry Muhammad Yasin, said the party would keep contesting through the final phase despite what he called rigging on a historic scale. He accused the chief election commissioner of favouring the PML-N and said Sanaullah and Muqam had shown no discomfort at what he characterised as an admission of wrongdoing, telling reporters the two had instead appeared satisfied with the outcome.
Memon alleged PML-N candidates had stamped ballot papers in several Mirpur division seats during the first phase — LA-1, LA-5, LA-9, LA-11 and LA-12 — and said the PPP’s formal complaints to the Election Commission over the claim had gone unanswered. He also disputed the official explanation for Sunday’s postponement in LA-27, saying there had been no rainfall in the area, and argued the commission lacked the logistical capacity to deliver ballot material on schedule; in LA-28, he said, only seven of ten union councils had been equipped to hold polling on the day. Memon repeated the party’s account that acting AJK President Chaudhry Latif Akbar was attacked by PML-N supporters en route to vote, and said a PPP National Assembly member was shot and wounded in the hand at a polling station in the same area.
Yasin said turnout at roughly 40 polling stations had run as high as 85 to 99 per cent, against an average he put at 40 to 45 per cent territory-wide — a disparity he argued pointed to manipulation rather than organic participation, though the figures were presented by the party rather than the Election Commission. He also said PPP had flagged the decision to hold the election in phases as a rigging risk to party chairman Bilawal Bhutto Zardari as soon as it was announced.
Clashes and disputed casualty claim in Muzaffarabad
Sunday’s voting was accompanied by scattered unrest in parts of Muzaffarabad. In LA-31 Muzaffarabad-V (Khawra), PML-N and PPP supporters clashed in Union Council Katkair. The PPP said one of its workers, Syed Mushtaq Shah, died in the violence; the PML-N disputed this, saying the man suffered a cardiac arrest during a scuffle between the two sides. Neither version has been independently verified.
Separately, Akbar wrote to the chief election commissioner alleging security failures, gunfire, interference with polling and obstruction of PPP polling agents, and said an associate, Advocate Syed Mumtaz Hussain Naqvi, was injured in what he described as an attempt on his own life, calling for an inquiry. The Election Commission had not responded to that letter as of Monday. Further clashes involving PML-N and PPP supporters, in some cases involving gunfire, were reported elsewhere, though no fatalities from those incidents had been confirmed.
Beyond Azad Kashmir itself, refugee-seat voting took place at polling stations spread across Punjab, Sindh, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Balochistan and Islamabad, in cities including Chakwal, Jhelum, Rawalpindi, Sialkot, Narowal, Sargodha, Attock, Nawabshah, Hyderabad, Mohmand, Mansehra, Quetta, Dera Ghazi Khan, Peshawar, Sanghar and Naushahro Feroze. Turnout there was generally light and polling largely uneventful: no voters registered at one Mohmand polling station, while in Dera Ghazi Khan, a station established for a single registered voter in Maumori recorded exactly one ballot cast, by that voter. Of the 12 refugee seats, seven sit in Punjab, one in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, and the remainder are split across multiple provinces or shared with Islamabad.
Wider unrest over refugee seats continues
The refugee constituencies have been a flashpoint since early June, when the Joint Awami Action Committee began a campaign of protest demanding their abolition, arguing the seats hand undue influence over AJK government formation to voters based outside the territory. The group, which began as a grassroots campaign against high electricity tariffs and the cost of living before broadening into constitutional reform, was banned by the AJK government last month under anti-terrorism legislation following weeks of protests and violent confrontations with security forces; JAAC has rejected the ban as politically motivated and maintains it remains a peaceful movement.
In a statement issued Monday, JAAC said it did not recognise the ongoing election and called for the entire process to be scrapped in favour of fresh polls within 90 days, to follow what it described as necessary constitutional and political reforms. Its demands include abolishing the refugee seats, releasing detained activists, dropping terrorism and criminal charges against its members, implementing a prior agreement with the government on electricity tariffs and subsidies, forming a judicial commission to investigate deaths during the recent unrest, and installing an interim administration to oversee elections once reforms are complete.
The Azad Kashmir Supreme Court ruled in June that the refugee seats are constitutionally protected and cannot be removed without a constitutional amendment, dismissing petitions that sought to have them struck down. Former prime minister Imran Khan’s Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf is boycotting the election altogether, deepening the field of parties disputing its legitimacy even as the PML-N and PPP — coalition partners in the federal government in Islamabad — trade accusations over how it has been run.
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