Voting is taking place on Thursday (September 24) in Pakistan-administered Kashmir (Azad Jammu and Kashmir) to elect a new president and fill a constitutional post that has been vacant for about eight months.
Voting has been under way since the morning, local time, at the legislative assembly secretariat in Muzaffarabad. Under the region’s rules, whoever wins a majority of 27 assembly votes will be elected president.
Najeeb Naqi Khan, the candidate backed by the ruling Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N), is strongly expected to win. He is a former minister from Sudhnoti district and a lawmaker elected several times.
The opposition Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) has fielded Chaudhry Latif Akbar, a former speaker of the assembly.
Although under the law a member of the assembly cannot hold the post of president, the PML-N and its allies have enough seats in the 53-member assembly that their candidate’s victory is considered all but certain.
The post has been vacant since the death of the then president, Sultan Mahmood Chaudhry. Under the rules, an election should be held within 30 days of the post falling vacant, but it was not held until now because of political calculations and delays by the government.
Analysts say the central government delayed the election for so long to tilt the situation in its favour. Meanwhile, because of recent political unrest and violence, voting has still not been possible for seven seats in Poonch and Sudhnoti districts. With security not fully assured, the election commission has yet to announce polling dates for those seats.
Critics say keeping people in those areas from voting is unfair, but with no legal obstacle, today’s election is going ahead with the assembly only partly filled.
বাংলায় মূল প্রতিবেদন পড়ুন · Read the original Bengali report