AJK general elections: Three major political parties to try their luck

ISLAMABAD: The three main political parties that aggressively vie for electoral supremacy in Pakistan, will run against each other in the general elections for the Azad Jammu and Kashmir Legislative Assembly (AJKLA) to be held on July 25.

The ferocity of the upcoming election campaign will be no different from the intensity of the similar contest in the Gilgit-Baltistan (GB) polls in which the then two main constituents of the multi-party opposition alliance, the Pakistan Democratic Movement (PDM), did not hesitate to take each other on. It was during this interlude that Bilawal’s “shock” over Nawaz Sharif’s remarks made at the PDM’s public rally in Gujranwala three weeks earlier sowed the seeds of discord between the two parties.

The Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N), Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) and Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) are the main contenders in the electoral contest in which a total of 3,220,546 voters will exercise their right of franchise. The parties have allotted their tickets to their candidates and have fielded the maximum number of aspirants.

The process of allocation of tickets in the PML-N and PPP has been smooth and has not generated any controversy. However, the process has been marred by rows as far as the PTI is concerned. It is yet to be seen who will be in charge of the PTI’s electoral contest with its aim to come first in the AJK elections. In GB, Federal Minister Ali Amin Gandapur had played the primary role and had belligerently dealt with his rivals.

The PML-N, which has been ruling AJK for the last five years, has by and large put up the same victorious candidates it had backed in the last general elections. It has faced some desertions, which, however, are far fewer than what it had encountered in GB where several of its winning nominees switched sides and decided to back the PTI. This factor helped the PTI win the elections and form the government. The PML-N’s performance, which was below par compared to the past, was somewhat better than that of the PPP, although Bilawal Bhutto had outdone every political party by staying in GB for nearly a month for the campaign. Maryam Nawaz had also visited the region for electioneering but only in the concluding week.

The three main political parties are independently fighting the elections and have not made any alliance with each other. The PTI is expected to have a cooperative relationship or seat adjustment with a couple of smaller parties that have the capacity to bag a few seats.

In the past, either the PPP, the PML-N or the once powerful Muslim Conference had been in power in AJK but the PTI has never ruled the region before. It had not fared well in the last general polls held in 2016. Now, it has inducted into its fold some influential local figures eying the electoral exercise.

Bilawal is expected to repeat the hectic campaign that he had waged in GB. Maryam Nawaz, accompanied by the main party leaders including Shahid Khaqan Abbasi, is also likely to lead her party’s electioneering. The policy of the AJK election commission on the campaigns being spearheaded by these politicians is still to be unveiled, specifically with regards to what the state’s poll laws say.

The principal political parties are going to take the AJK elections as a critical test of their popularity and will struggle hard to get encouraging results to boost their standing in the national politics of Pakistan.

Polling will be held for 33 AJKLA seats inside Azad Kashmir and for 12 seats for Kashmir refugees living in cities such as Rawalpindi, Karachi and others. Generally, the provincial governments manage to get the representatives of their particular political party to do well in the seats in Pakistan.

The National Command and Operations Centre (NCOC), which devises the guidelines and policy for the control of the Covid-19 pandemic, recently recommended, through a letter to the AJK election commission, that the polls be postponed for two months till September because of the fast spread of the pandemic. However, the commission paid no attention to the proposal and has gone ahead with organizing the electoral process.

The commission took the position that there was no provision in the AJK Constitution to defer the elections. The AJK prime minister forcefully opposed the postponement saying that the elections could be delayed only in case of war or any other major emergency and that the Line of Control was not hot as it had been during the previous polls. The PPP also rejected the idea of putting off the polls. Then, the PTI too called for holding of polls at the appointed time stating that it was fully geared up for the process.