Pakistan’s plan to annex Kashmir’s Gilgit-Baltistan hits snag amid disputed election fallout
- For the first time in over a decade, the party of power in Islamabad has failed to win a clear majority in Gilgit-Baltistan’s legislative assembly elections
- Hopes of a strong mandate for making the region Pakistan’s fifth province have been dashed, just as a national opposition coalition gains momentum
A hotly disputed election in Gilgit-Baltistan, part of the wider Kashmir region administered by Pakistanthat borders China, has not delivered the mandate for annexation that Prime Minister Imran Khan was hoping for, amid swirling allegations of federal interference in the electoral process.For the first time since Gilgit-Baltistan’s legislative assembly was established in 2009, the party of power in Islamabad has failed to win a clear majority in the region’s elections. Khan’s Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) party and its ally Majlis-i-Wahdat-i-Muslimeen won just 10 of the assembly’s 24 directly elected seats, according to official results issued on Tuesday – a full nine days after voting concluded on November 15.
The PTI is still able to form a government for the region after striking a deal last weekend with six victorious independent candidates – all of them former party members. Six more PTI candidates have been elected to the nine seats reserved for women, technocrats and professionals under the region’s system of proportional representation.
Yet instead of strengthening the case for making Gilgit-Baltistan the fifth province of Pakistan, the election’s disputed outcome could now drag the remote mountainous region into a burgeoning opposition movement that seeks to overthrow Khan’s government.
The Pakistan Democratic Movement was formed in September with the express purpose of bringing an end to political interference by the country’s powerful military, which the opposition accuses of rigging the 2018 general elections in favour of Khan and his PTI. Its leaders had warned that their support for the annexation of Gilgit-Baltistan would be contingent upon free and fair elections being held in the region.
Shahzad Ilhami, a Gilgit-based spokesman for the Pakistan People’s Party (PPP), which forms part of the opposition coalition, said it was still unclear whether Khan’s government would go ahead with the constitutional reforms required to make Gilgit-Baltistan a province.
The ruling party does not have a two-thirds majority in parliament, so it can’t get the reforms approved. We suspect this [promised reform] was just an election stunt,” Ilhami told This Week In Asia.
The PPP secured just three of the seven seats it expected to win in the Gilgit-Baltistan elections, and dozens of its activists were arrested for rioting in the regional capital of Gilgit on Monday after violent protests broke out amid allegations of vote-rigging.
Khan’s administration has only a thin majority in the directly elected lower house of Pakistan’s parliament, and is dependent on support from regional parties with strong ties to the military. A PTI-led coalition is expected to gain control of the upper house, however, following indirect elections to be held in March.
Professor Ajmal Hussain, financial secretary of the PTI’s Gilgit-Baltistan chapter, dismissed opposition allegations of vote-rigging as a “rejection of the democratic expression of the people”, and said suggestions Khan’s administration would back out of constitutional reforms to upgrade the region’s status were “shocking”.
“These elections were important, and not just for Gilgit-Baltistan. For 73 years, we have not had fundamental rights and Prime Minister Imran Khan took a bold decision, despite pressure from India , the US and others,” he said.Geopolitical analysts focused on South Asia say Pakistan’s move to settle the constitutional status of Gilgit-Baltistan has been encouraged by China, at least in part.
https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/poli...nnex-kashmirs-gilgit-baltistan-hits-snag-amid
