Legislators in Pakistan-administered Kashmir voted Thursday to elect a president, filling a post left vacant for nearly eight months after the previous occupant's death — well past the 30-day constitutional deadline. PML-N candidate Najeeb Naqi Khan was expected to win comfortably, with 32 of 46 occupied seats backing his candidacy against PPP nominee Chaudhry Latif Akbar. The delay itself is the story. President Sultan Mehmood Chaudhry died on January 31. The constitution required an election within 30 days. It did not happen. Analyst Ershad Mahmud, author of a book on Poonch politics, alleges the federal PML-N government delayed deliberately, calculating that once its own government formed in AJK after the July-August legislative elections, it could install its own president. That is precisely what occurred. Seven of 53 assembly seats remain empty. Polling in five constituencies of Poonch district and two in Sudhnoti was postponed before the final phase of legislative elections in August, citing security concerns. Six weeks later, no new dates have been set. Chief Election Commissioner Justice (retd) Ghulam Mustafa Mughal told Al Jazeera that safety must be the priority. The legal position, he says, is clear: the absent legislators do not bar the presidential vote. The security crisis is inseparable from a crackdown on dissent. The Jammu Kashmir Joint Awami Action Committee (JAAC), a grassroots umbrella organization, was banned on June 5 under antiterrorism legislation. Its central demand — abolishing 12 reserved seats for Kashmiri refugees living elsewhere in Pakistan, which it says allow outsiders to shape local politics — remains unaddressed. Internet services were cut the same day; broadband was restored after 99 days on September 13, though mobile data restrictions persist in parts of the region. The human cost has been severe. Residents and rights groups put the death toll from unrest at more than 50. The government has not issued an overall figure but confirms at least seven police and paramilitary personnel killed. Turnout in the legislative elections dropped to 48 percent from 61 percent in 2021, a measure of disillusionment or intimidation or both. The constitutional architecture reveals the extraction clearly. The interim constitution allows election by a majority of total membership — 27 votes — regardless of vacancies. This means the ruling coalition can elect a president while the very districts most aggrieved by the political structure are locked out of the process. Mahmud frames it as collective punishment: "Anyone demanding structural reform, accountable government and better public services will be punished." What emerges is a pattern familiar across contested territories: federal power using procedural delay, security bans, and constitutional technicalities to ensure its preferred outcome while the population bearing the costs has no voice in the decision. The 12 reserved seats that sparked the protest movement remain untouched. The JAAC ban remains in force. The internet blackout lasted 99 days. And the president was elected without the districts that dared to object.
