By Staff Reporter
GILGIT: Senior leaders of Pakistan’s two dominant political parties convened in this mountain city on Thursday to begin carving out a power-sharing arrangement for the remote northern territory of Gilgit-Baltistan, where a June 7 legislative election left the ruling Pakistan Peoples Party in its strongest position in the region in years — but still short of a governing majority.
The PPP emerged from those elections as the clear front-runner, claiming 11 of the 24 seats in the Gilgit-Baltistan Legislative Assembly according to unofficial results compiled from Forms-47 submitted by returning officers across the territory’s constituencies. The Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz, the other pillar of Pakistan’s fragile federal coalition, won six seats. Combined, the two parties would command a comfortable majority, and both sides indicated Thursday that negotiations were well underway — though neither had yet committed to a formal agreement.
In a statement after the talks, the PPP declared a “major breakthrough,” saying the two delegations had agreed to submit their proposals on government formation to their respective central party leadership for review. The party framed its position with characteristic confidence, asserting that the people of Gilgit-Baltistan had delivered it a clear mandate by making it “the largest party” in the assembly.
The PML-N offered a more measured account of the same meeting. Its statement acknowledged that “several proposals came under consideration” and that both sides had agreed to advance the consultation process — but emphasized that no final course of action would be set until the proposals had been reviewed and the central leadership of both parties had been briefed.
The gap between those two characterizations — the PPP’s triumphalism and the PML-N’s studied caution — reflected the delicate arithmetic at play in a territory where politics has long been shaped by geography, sectarian loyalties, and the long reach of Islamabad.
The PPP delegation was led by party Secretary General Nayyer Hussain Bukhari and included Qamar Zaman Kaira, a veteran party figure, along with Sindh Senior Minister Sharjeel Inam Memon and Sindh Local Government Minister Nasir Hussain Shah. Also present was Advocate Amjad Hussain, the president of the PPP’s Gilgit-Baltistan chapter and the party’s leading candidate for the chief minister’s post.
The PML-N sent its federal Minister for Kashmir Affairs and Gilgit-Baltistan, Amir Muqam, to represent its interests, alongside Hafiz Hafeezur Rehman, the party’s regional president and a former chief minister of the territory — a man with deep institutional knowledge of its politics and its fault lines.
Despite the broad outlines of an agreement taking shape, the final certification of election results remains on hold. Electoral authorities have barred the consolidation of returns until re-polling is completed at certain stations in five constituencies: Skardu-II, Astore-I, and three seats in the mountainous Diamer district — Diamer-I, Diamer-II, and Diamer-III. The disputes in those constituencies could still shift the balance of power at the margins, though they are unlikely to fundamentally alter the PPP’s leading position.
Beyond the two major parties, candidates backed by former Prime Minister Imran Khan’s Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf won two seats, and PTI’s allied religious party, Majlis Wahdat-i-Muslimeen, secured one. Four independent candidates also won seats, making them potential kingmakers — or at least bargaining chips — as coalition talks mature.
The discussions Thursday also touched on broader political cooperation and unspecified national and domestic issues, the PPP said, suggesting the negotiations extend beyond the immediate question of who will govern Gilgit-Baltistan and into the more complex terrain of the two parties’ relationship at the federal level.
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