The Azad Jammu and Kashmir (AJK) Election Commission on Tuesday ordered re-polling at some polling stations in two constituencies in Poonch Division’s Bagh district.
Polling in four constituencies of Bagh and Haveli districts was held on Monday as part of the third and final phase of AJK elections. Balloting in the Poonch and Sudhnoti districts had been postponed over law and order concerns in the wake of tensions between protesters and authorities.
Re-polling at nine polling stations in LA-15 (Bagh Central) and 14 polling stations in LA-16 (Bagh East) will be held on August 15 (Saturday), AJK Chief Election Commissioner (CEC) Ghulam Mustafa Mughal told Dawn at his office on Tuesday.
Re-polling has been ordered as the electoral process at some stations either could not begin on time or was disrupted and subsequently cancelled.
Of the four constituencies that went to the polls on Monday, the PPP and PML-N appear set to win one seat each, while a lesser-known party has won the third seat and the result of the fourth is awaited.
According to the latest unofficial figures, PPP’s Sardar Ziaul Qamar was leading the race for LA-15 with 16,637 votes, while PML-N’s Mushtaq Ahmed Minhas was trailing him with 15,015 votes.
Jamaat-i-Islami’s Brig (retd) Dr Mohammad Khan had secured 12,259 votes. The nine polling stations where re-polling has been ordered have 5,032 registered voters.
Istehkam-i-Pakistan Party president and former AJK prime minister Sardar Tanveer Ilyas, who had won the constituency in the 2021 election on a PTI ticket, appeared to be out of the race.
In LA-16, PML-N’s Sardar Mir Akbar was leading PPP’s Sardar Qamaruz Zaman, who is the father of the PPP candidate in LA-15 and has served as an AJK minister in several PPP governments.
Akbar had secured 19,515 votes, while Zaman had polled 16,290. The 14 stations where re-polling will be held are said to account for about 7,200 votes.
Meanwhile, the Election Commission issued the preliminary results for LA-14 (Dhirkot), where Sajid Iqbal Abbasi of the little-known Awami Dast-o-Bazu Party defeated Muslim Conference president Sardar Attique Ahmed Khan.
Abbasi secured 40,522 votes, more than double that of Attique, who ranked second with 19,637 ballots in his favour, Form-27 showed. Form-27 lists cumulative results based on votes cast on the polling day (August 10) and by the election staff in advance polling.
Abbasi contested his first election on his party’s ticket in the constituency where the Muslim Conference president, and before him his uncle and father, had been elected in all nine elections since 1985.
Attique’s defeat also appeared to underscore the political decline of what was once the largest and longest-ruling party in AJK, but was reduced to a marginal force following the emergence of the PML-N in 2010.
PML-N alleges tampering in AJK PM’s constituency
The result of LA-17 (Haveli), from where AJK Prime Minister Faisal Mumtaz Rathore was contesting, was still awaited, while PML-N candidate Chaudhry Mohsin Aziz demanded a recount.
Aziz alleged that Form-24s from different polling stations, containing the votes secured by each candidate, had been tampered with.
Following this, Election Commission officials began looking into the matter, while the ballot papers were reportedly transported under tight security to Muzaffarabad for counting.
Sources in the Election Commission said further decisions on the matter would be taken after the polling bags and relevant election records reached the commission’s office.
In a statement, Aziz urged PPP Chairman Bilawal Bhutto-Zardari to agree to a recount in LA-17, offering to quit politics if he failed to emerge victorious by a heavy majority.
Terming Rathore a “Form-47 prime minister”, Aziz said: “We possess the results signed by the presiding officers of all polling stations, showing a clear winning margin of 8,600 votes.”
He claimed there was a stark difference between the results in their possession and those held by the returning officer (RO). He alleged that their application for a recount, submitted to the RO, had been rejected.
“The RO’s partiality has destroyed the peaceful atmosphere of Haveli, but we will not allow anyone to steal our mandate,” he said.
“In any case, a recount is my fundamental right, and our protest will continue until a recount is conducted and the mandate is restored,” he said.
However, state-run Radio Pakistan, citing the Election Commission, reported that Rathore had won the LA-17 seat by defeating Aziz.
Elections are being held across AJK in three division-wise phases amid tensions between protesters and the authorities that have been ongoing for over two months.
The PML-N has so far bagged 24 seats — nine from Mirpur polls held on July 27 and 15 in the second phase comprising Muzaffarabad Division and the 12 refugee seats. On the other hand, the PPP has only won 10 constituencies so far.
Polling in the first and second phase of the elections was marred by allegations of rigging, scuffles and violence, with the PPP and the PML-N — allies in the Centre — engaging in a war of words.
The PPP continued its allegations of electoral malpractices on Monday as well, while the PML-N has already expressed its confidence of having a two-thirds majority to form the government in the region.
The third phase of the AJK elections was originally meant to cover all of Poonch Division. The division comprises 11 constituencies, including three in Bagh, one in Haveli, five in Poonch district and two in Sudhnoti district.
However, last week the AJK Election Commission announced that polling would only go ahead as scheduled in Bagh and Haveli due to concerns over the law and order situation. The AJK election commissioner has hinted that polling on the remaining seven constituencies could be held by Aug 20 or 21.
