By Staff Reporter
MUZAFFARABAD: Voting finally concluded in two constituencies in Azad Kashmir on Tuesday, three days later than planned, as the region’s already fraught election descended further into acrimony between the two parties that jointly run the federal government in Islamabad.
Polling in LA-27 Muzaffarabad-I, known as Kotla, and LA-28 Muzaffarabad-II, known as Lachhrat, had been due to take place on 2 August as part of the second phase of Azad Jammu and Kashmir’s staggered elections. It was pushed back after landslides and severe weather blocked roads to Kutla and to 71 of the 174 polling stations in Lachhrat. Voting eventually ran from 8am to 5pm on Tuesday, with results beginning to filter through that evening.
But the delay did nothing to calm tensions between the Pakistan Peoples Party and the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz, allies in the federal coalition who have spent the past fortnight accusing each other of ballot rigging, intimidation and violence across the wider Kashmir poll.
A litany of allegations
The PPP filed a string of complaints with the Election Commission on Tuesday, posting each to its official X account as it did so.
In the most serious, the party said polling staff had been discovered inside the home of a PML-N supporter roughly two kilometres from the designated polling site in Kotla’s Bheri union council, with official ballot papers and polling bags allegedly in their possession. The party said staff assigned to polling station No 3 had abandoned their post entirely and relocated to the residence of a PML-N candidate, and that it held what it called concrete evidence to that effect.
PPP vice-president Sherry Rehman said the reports were deeply concerning and confirmed that footage of the alleged rigging had been passed to the Election Commission, calling for immediate disciplinary and legal action. She questioned how the polling staff involved could have continued their duties given what she described as clear evidence of wrongdoing, and said the episode raised serious doubts about the transparency of the vote and the credibility of the bodies overseeing it. She called for anyone found to have interfered with the process to be held accountable under the law.
Asked about the footage, Election Commission official Khawaja Muhammed Ahsan told Dawn that while a PPP worker had shared videos, they were vague and amounted to little more than unverified allegations. He said the material could not be treated as proof unless it was authenticated through forensic examination and backed by other credible evidence.
The PPP did not stop there. In a separate complaint, it accused the PML-N of ballot stuffing at polling stations No 95 and No 97 in LA-28 and of preventing voters from casting ballots altogether. It further alleged that the presiding officer at polling station No 92 in LA-27 had been stuffing ballots himself and demanded he be replaced by what it called a neutral figure. In Bandi, part of LA-28, the party accused PML-N workers of opening fire in an attempt to frighten residents into staying away from polling stations.
Later that evening, the party’s Azad Kashmir election cell submitted further video evidence to the commission, this time concerning polling station No 92 in the Municipal Committee Pateeka area of LA-27. In a complaint lodged by election cell in-charge Javed Ayub, the PPP alleged the station had been turned into what it called a factory for fake votes, with PML-N workers said to have cast fraudulent ballots openly throughout the day while the presiding officer failed to intervene and ballots were stamped in his absence.
PML-N hits back
The PML-N gave no ground. Rana Sanaullah, the prime minister’s adviser on political affairs, dismissed the allegations concerning LA-27 as a fake video circulated as part of a disinformation campaign. Speaking to a local television channel, he said no complaints had been received about polling staff at any station and challenged the PPP to lodge a formal complaint with the Election Commission rather than air its claims in public, so that officials could be made to explain themselves. He accused the party of pushing a rigging narrative from the very start of the election and said allegations needed to be backed by evidence rather than political point-scoring.
Tallal Chaudhry, the minister of state for interior and the PML-N’s election coordinator for Poonch division, went further, telling PPP chairman Bilawal Bhutto-Zardari that leaders should not cry over defeat. Chairing a review meeting on the third phase of the AJK election in Poonch, he said his party’s sweeping victory in the first two phases reflected public trust in the performance of the federal and Punjab governments, and told district coordinators and candidates that the people of Kashmir had voted for work and performance. The mandate handed to the PML-N, he added, showed that every part of Pakistan wanted to become like Punjab in terms of development and governance. He said he was confident the party would win a majority of seats in the third phase.
Threat of a Supreme Court challenge
At a press conference in Muzaffarabad, the PPP’s AJK president and LA-31 Khawra candidate, Chaudhry Latif Akbar, said it was unbelievable that 56,000 votes had been cast within a matter of hours. He confirmed the party had formally applied to the Election Commission for re-polling at 45 polling stations and warned that if the request was refused, the PPP would take the matter to the Supreme Court in an attempt to have the election declared invalid.
Akbar alleged the polls had been marked by unprecedented rigging, violence against voters and killings of a kind he said had not been seen in previous elections. He claimed the rigging had been carried out on the instructions of federal ministers and that people had been fired upon during polling.
Bhutto Zardari’s warning
The row comes after Bilawal Bhutto-Zardari warned on Monday that a countdown had begun for the PML-N and declared that his party’s movement for people’s rights would extend across the entire country. In a series of clips posted to X, the PPP chairman said his party’s campaign for the public’s right to governance, ownership and employment would continue, adding a pointed message for his coalition partners: “You can hear that voice, listen carefully, tick tock, tick tock. Your countdown has begun.”
It was not the first such warning from Bilawal, who issued a similar message to the federal government — which his own party helps to run — only last week. Other senior PPP figures have made comparable remarks in recent days, with some going as far as to accuse the PML-N of rigging the 2024 general election that first brought the two parties together in coalition. The two sides have also clashed repeatedly over governance, political mandate and the relative performance of the provinces they control.
The Election Commission’s spokesperson sought to draw a line under the speculation on Tuesday, confirming that polling across all constituencies in Poonch division would go ahead as scheduled on 10 August and urging voters to disregard rumours to the contrary. Voters were advised to exercise their right to vote according to the published timetable, with the commission promising to inform the public promptly of any changes should they become necessary.
AJK’s elections are being staggered across three phases for security reasons. The first, covering Mirpur division, was held on 27 July and saw the PML-N take nine of 13 seats to the PPP’s four. The second phase, covering seven seats in Muzaffarabad division and 12 reserved seats for refugees from India-administered Kashmir, was largely completed on Sunday, with Tuesday’s vote in Kutla and Lachhrat bringing that phase to a close. The third and final phase, covering 11 constituencies in Poonch division, is due on 10 August.
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