Independents emerge as key players in GB govt formation

ISLAMABAD: In Sunday’s fiercely fought but contaminated with rigging charges, independent candidates winning nearly one-third of the total general seats of the Gilgit-Baltistan Legislative Assembly (GB LA) elections have become key players in the strategically positioned region’s government forming.

The full but unofficial results of all 23 constituencies that held the vote on Sunday suggest that Pakistan’s Tehreek-i-Insaf (PTI) emerged as the single largest party with 10 seats, GB led by seven independents. Three seats were won by the Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP), two by the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) and one by the Majlis Wahdatul Muslimeen (MWM), which had a PTI seat change.

With the potential addition of four out of six reserved seats for women and two out of three reserved seats for technocrats, the PTI and its allies will have a total of 16 seats in the 33-member GB LA, suggesting that only one more winning party will need to be endorsed to enter the coalition.

Read Also: Naked rigging’: Bilawal vows to use all options to contest PPP losses in GB elections

Currently, the PTI has not nominated anybody as its nominee for the GB chief minister’s office as its likely candidate and retired GB president of the party Justice Jaffer Shah had died due to coronavirus only weeks before the polling day and his death also triggered a delay in the GBLA-3 Gilgit-III seat elections. The by-election for this seat is expected to take place on Nov 22.

As PTI employees and activists started celebrating their first win in the region, the two key opposition parties in the area, the PPP and the PML-N, came out with accusations of rigging and foul play. The PPP also called for demonstrations against the suspected fraud in the area as PPP Chairman Bilawal Bhutto-Zardari warned Islamabad of the dire consequences if the manipulation is not reversed in the polls.”

The PPP, which had only one seat in the GB assembly during the previous elections, secured three seats, one each in Gilgit, Nagar and Ghanche. Although the party has alleged rigging in the entire electoral process, its biggest allegation concerns the Gilgit-I constituency (GBLA-1), where its candidate, Jamil Ahmed, was proclaimed the winner on Sunday night with a lead of 400 votes after the final count, but was seen to be behind by only two votes in the morning.

He alerted the powers that be, not to force him to the point that “I take drastic action,” claiming that he is under pressure from the people. He advised the demonstrators to continue raising their voices for their rights if according to their mandate, the seats snatched by rigging were not returned. He also warned Islamabad that the people of Gilgit-Baltistan would be marching towards Islamabad if the rigging was not reversed. In this situation, he said, he knew he would choose an intense and daunting course, but that would be the path to victory.”

The chairman of the PPP said that the PTI was not confident of its election win and that was why it had not nominated anybody as its candidate for the office of chief minister. On this occasion, as the PPP candidate for the Chief Minister’s Office, he declared the name of Amjad Hussain.

He accused the GB Election Commission of endorsing the “criminal actions of the PTI ministers” governing PTI. Instead of avoiding unethical activities by government ministers, he added, the chief election commissioner addressed a press conference against the opposition in Islamabad.

PTI got ‘shameful defeat’: Maryam

Likewise, the PML-N have denied the outcome of the poll, arguing that the vote of the people was snatched. The faction, which dominated the area for five years with 16 seats, has now been reduced to only the two Diamer and Ghizer seats held by its candidates.

Vice President Maryam Nawaz of PML-N said Neither previously did the PTI have any presence in GB nor will it have one now.” She said the few seats that the PTI captured were won by breaking away PML-N contestants, rigging, and using selectors.

گلگت بلتستان میں پی ٹی آئی کا نہ پہلے کوئی وجود تھا نہ اب ہے۔اسکو بھیک میں ملنے والی چند سیٹیں دھونس، دھاندلی، مسلم لیگ ن سےتوڑےگئے امیدواروں اور سلیکٹرز کی مرہون منت ہیں۔وفاق میں موجود حکمران جماعت کوپہلی بار یہاں ایسی شکست فاش ہوئی ہے۔ یہ شکست آنے والے دنوں کی کہانی سنارہی ہے

— Maryam Nawaz Sharif (@MaryamNSharif) November 16, 2020

In another tweet, Maryam said it was simply a “shameful loss” that the PTI was unable to get a “easy majority amid worst rigging and altering loyalties by complete state control, government agencies, government machinery and black tactics.”

Ms Nawaz said that the PTI would need support to use crutches just as in Punjab and the Center” to shape the administration.

Brave GB people! In top of this rigging, do not lose courage. The game is about to end with these puppets,” she said.

گلگت بلتستان کے بہادر لوگو ! اس دھاندلی سے ہمت نہیں ہارنا۔ ریت کی یہ دیوار گرنے والی ہے۔ کٹھ پتلی کا کھیل ختم ہونے کو ہے۔ انشاء اللّہ !

— Maryam Nawaz Sharif (@MaryamNSharif) November 16, 2020

PML-N Secretary General Ahsan Iqbal also addressed a news conference in Gilgit, while the vice president of the party, Shahid Khaqan Abbasi, talked to reporters outside Islamabad’s accountability court. The two leaders lashed out at the PTI for stealing the people’s mandate for what they called it.