Lawmakers in Pakistan-administered Kashmir are voting Thursday to elect a president, with ruling PML-N candidate Najeeb Naqi Khan expected to win. Seven assembly seats remain vacant after polls in parts of Poonch division were postponed amid unrest.
The vote is scheduled for 10am–1pm at the assembly secretariat in Muzaffarabad. The constitution requires 27 votes—a majority of all 53 assembly seats—even with only 46 occupied; the PML-N and its allies hold 32. Opposition PPP nominee Chaudhry Latif Akbar, a former assembly speaker, served as acting president until August. The office fell vacant when Sultan Mehmood Chaudhry died on January 31; the constitution required an election within 30 days, but no vote was held.
Polls in seven of Poonch division’s 11 constituencies (five in Poonch district, two in Sudhnoti) were postponed before the final phase; no new dates had been set, with the chief election commissioner citing security concerns. The banned Jammu Kashmir Joint Awami Action Committee seeks to abolish 12 assembly seats reserved for Kashmiri refugees elsewhere in Pakistan. Residents and rights groups cite more than 50 deaths; the government says at least seven police and paramilitary personnel died but gives no overall toll. Broadband was restored on September 13 after 99 days, but mobile data remained restricted in parts of the region.
